Pi Zero To AR: Building DIY Augmented Reality Glasses

If you’re into pushing tech boundaries from home, this one’s for you. Redditor [mi_kotalik] has crafted ‘Zero’, a custom pair of DIY augmented reality (AR) glasses using a Raspberry Pi …

Creating Customized Diffraction Lenses For Lasers

[The Thought Emporium] has been fascinated by holograms for a long time, and in all sorts of different ways. His ultimate goal right now is to work up to creating holograms using chocolate, but alo…

Broken Lens Provides Deep Dive Into Camera Repair

While most of us are probably willing to pick up the tools and void the warranty on just about anything, often just to see what’s inside, many of us draw the line at camera gear. The tiny scr…

The F Number On A Lens Means Something? Who Knew!

The Raspberry Pi has provided experimenters with many channels of enquiry, and for me perhaps the furthest into uncharted waters it has led me has come through its camera interface. At a superficia…

A 3D Printed Grinder For Printed Lens Blanks

When one thinks of applications for 3D printing, optical components don’t seem to be a good fit. With the possible exception of Fresnel lenses, FDM printing doesn’t seem up to the job o…

Wooden CNC Sculpture Displays Conway’s Game Of Life

Conway’s Game of Life has been the object of fascination for computer hobbyists for decades. Watching the generations tick by is mesmerizing to watch, but programming the data structure and i…

Making Your Own VR Headset? Consider This DIY Lens Design

Lenses are a necessary part of any head-mounted display, but unfortunately, they aren’t always easy to source. Taking them out of an existing headset is one option, but one may wish for a mor…

A Wigglegram Lens With Variable Aperture

Wigglegrams are those weird animated pictures you’ve seen that seem to generate a 3D-like effect. [scealux] had built lenses to take such pictures before, but wanted to take things to the nex…

Probably The Cheapest Lens You Will Ever Use

Photographic enthusiasts will invariably amass an extensive collection of lenses, and in their communities there are near-mythical and sought-after lenses that change hands for incredible prices. I…

Make Yourself A Megamind With A Hypercentric Camera

Sometimes, all it takes to learn something new is a fresh perspective on things. But what’s to be learned from reversing your perspective completely with a hypercentric lens? For one thing, t…

A Fresnel Lens Without The Pain

Making a traditional glass lens requires a lot of experience, skill, and patience grinding a piece of glass to the required shape, and is not for the casual experimenter. Making a glass Fresnel len…

IR Camera Is Excellent Hacking Platform

While there have been hiccups here and there, the general trend of electronics is to decrease in cost or increase in performance. This can be seen in fairly obvious ways like more powerful and affo…

AI And Savvy Marketing Create Dubious Moon Photos

Taking a high-resolution photo of the moon is a surprisingly difficult task. Not only is a long enough lens required, but the camera typically needs to be mounted on a tracking system of some kind,…

Interesting Optical Journey Results In Hybrid Viewfinder For Smartphones

Fair warning: if you ever thought there was nothing particularly interesting with optical viewfinders, prepare to have your misconception corrected by [volzo] with this deep-dive into camera-aiming…

Telephoto Lens Without The Fiscal Pain

If you’re in the market for a telephoto lens, the available range of optics for your camera is limited only by the size of your bank account. So when [Pixels and Prisms] promises a telephoto …

Ultimate Bokeh With A Projector Lens

Bokeh is a photography term that’s a bit difficult to define but is basically soft, aesthetically pleasing soft background blur, often used to make a subject stand out. Also called “bac…