Excellent. If you’re not quite bold enough to make permanent mods (breaking the glue seal) you can achieve some measure of macro capability by adding +2D, +4D, +10D etc. lenses in front of the camera module to reduce the close focus distance, with pretty good results. Not quite as close as that though :)

never head liz speak before mhm.

You should underline the bit in bold. There are many idiots out there…

Great! So now I can build my own version of Kinograph to digitize my father’s old 8mm films!

Or just buy macro lens that are designed for smartphones and clip it on.

Ha! just in time. I had issues with the focal length before where I wanted to take pictures of a sensor that the PI is attached to (oil tank swimmer level, because I am OCD and want a second opinion apart from the Reed switch array connected to the GPIOs). I “solved that problem by hanging a mirror at about 30 cm distance from the camera and taking a picture through that (which gives half way acceptable picture virtually 60 cm away). Having the macro function will greatly simplify the setup and get me much better resolution of the actual gauge.

That’s very cool, love macro photography. An alternative is to grab an old (broken!) CD player and use the lens off of that. I’ve done that with my phone before, more suited home brew than buying phone lenses!

Just to note, this was actually P33M’s idea first. I’ve just been playing around seeing what fun stuff I can take photos of!

Need to tidy my desk again, it’s been three months now…

Gordon

Glad to see this highlighted on the blog. As with any macro photo setup, the more magnification you get, the more shallow the depth of field. So anything subject that isn’t flat and parallel to the sensor, will get fuzzy except for one small region in focus…. see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

We really need to consider just what is being revealed here.

Absolutely nobody else never ever tells the public or customer base how to destructively modify their product out of design spec.

And then have the maturity of confidence in us by saying ” But if you’re careful, you’re unlikely to break anything..”

Unheard of.

This is telling of the intelligence behind the both the product and the support organisation behind it not to dumb us down with “..don’t think for yourself darling, and don’t ever do it without us or certified counsel..”

Success comes not only to those who have the ability or alignment of happenstance, but also the have cheek and dare to be unfettered by conforming other’s sense of safety.

Sorry if that’s a bit wordy, but it’s why the whole raspberry pi thing will have longevity, even in the face of eventual copycats.

“…so if you do break yours doing this, it’s at your own risk and you won’t be able to send it back for a replacement…”

A good reason to buy them in pairs, then!

I wonder if the manufacturer could be persuaded to produce batches without the blob of glue in the first place?

Is the glue absolutely necessary?

Can you screw the lens completely off this way?

It’s hard to know what “unsrew it from its mount” looks like without a zoom-in.
Maybe you could show the mod in close-up using another macro camera!

Any idea why I am seeing the Kinograph film in place of the one everyone else is obviously watching?

Can you put up some stills from the macro setting so we can appreciate the talked about quality

This is a great discovery. I’m in the process of making a camera rail for macrophotography, but the RP was only intended to control the movement of a usb microscope. Using the RP camera will cut another $45 from that project cost! Thanks!

We’ll have to make a few of these to use in our soldering workshops at FamiLAB. We currently use other usb microscopes connected with a laptop to project the instructors pcb while soldering…

Could this be used to remove the IR filter at all?

There is also a solution for the depth of field issue by using image stacking. see the blog post by Dave Hunt here:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3068

a non-pi way to do this is using chdk and a cannon camera: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/DoF_Stacking

Other simple obvious ideas: digiscoping (place the lens on a telescope eyepiece) and attaching the camera to a microscope.

You could put a tiny dab of paint or correction fluid across the joint between the lens and its mount *before* you unscrew it. That way you have a chance to put it back almost as it was.

My first “real” digital camera was a fixed-focus 2.8MP Concord. It taught me a lot about digital photography (What is this “white balance” stuff?) but its lack of macro capability drove me nuts(er). Nutsier? Anyway I came up with two solutions. The first involved a lens from a cheap pair of reading glasses (1.75 or 2.00 correction AIRC) and a piece of elastic string. Drill four small holes in the lens, use the string to hold the lens in front of the camera lens. Gives sharp images from about 17″ plus-or-minus 1″. The second was a combination of luck and Yank ingenuity; I found a magnifying glass attached to a frame designed for coin and stamp collectors at the local 99-cent store. The frame was cheap plastic and would not support the camera but the lens was good glass. I took two of the translucent covers from 50-packs of CD-Rs, cut 2″ round holes in the tops, and set the glass in the top of one. Slide the other underneath so that the two of them “telescope” and play with the focus until the picture is sharpest; mark it there, your depth-of-field is maybe 2mm. Excellent for pics of coins, jewelry.

I still have that rig, and if they ever get the camera boards back in stock, I’m looking forward to playing with it again!

Perhaps a stupid question… but how does the camera board look as a possibility as a “book reader”, in terms of resolution, etc.? I just wasted money buying a wand scanner that would *not* work on paperbacks, period. Exclamation point, even! It wouldn’t read anywhere *near* the “gutter” of the book. And was slow, slow… and I had to use Autostitch to get an OCR’able page together, so I said “forget it!” If Ion Audio hadn’t canceled their Booksaver, I’d have books galore on my tablet…

Can you be more specific about how you got it off? I’ve tried everything but mine won’t budge. I have the Pi NoIR varient. I’m worried about damaging it.