Fabrizio's Digital Camera Project 1. Build a Do-It-Yourself Macro Lens

Fabrizio

Italian photographer Fabrizio has devised some very clever ways to increase the versatility of his favorite camera, a Casio Exilim EX-Z120. This 7-megapixel camera has minimal shutter lag, an excellent menu system and is powered by rechargeable or standard AA-cells. Fabrizio's methods can possibly be applied to other cameras, so here we begin a series of projects from Fabrizio's Casio Extreme web site. Editor.

This series of projects describes how you can expand the versatility of the Casio EX-Z120 and possibly other digital cameras.

To assemble a macro lens for your camera, you need the cap of a film container like the one shown in Fig. 1. Use a knife to cut away the center of the cap as shown in Fig. 2. Attach a biconvex lens with a diameter of about 27 mm to the cap as shown in Fig. 3. The lens should be secured with glue. The lens I used came from an old binocular. Finally, mount the lens onto the end of the camera lens as shown in the final frame adjacent to Fig. 3.

Figure 4 is a close-up of a flower made using this do-it-yourself macro lens assembly and a Casio EX-Z120 digital camera.

Readers who assemble a macro lens modeled after the one designed by Fabrizio are encouraged to submit sharp sample photographs for possible publication in "Backscatter" or "Gallery." Send your contributions, a detailed caption and your name here. Editor.