How to shoot macro with the tiny Insta360 GO 3S camera

The Insta360 GO 3S ($239-429) has very quickly become one of my favourite cameras. With the ability to discretely go just about anywhere and shoot lovely 4K footage, it’s just invaluable, even if it’s not my main camera. Being small is its superpower.

But being small is also the cause of its biggest downfall. It’s small so it fits in small spaces, but it can’t film anything too close. Well, let’s solve that one right now with this video from Luke Edwin. All you need is a cheap smartphone lens and a 3D printed adapter.

Why shoot macro on the Insta360 GO 3S?

This is actually something I started looking into myself a few weeks ago. I’ve been 3D printing a lot lately and I thought about designing a bracket that would allow me to attach the Insta360 GO 3S to the print head to shoot some 4K footage of it whizzing around the print and doing its thing.

But right as I got excited about what the footage would look like, reality hit me. The Insta360 GO 3S can’t focus on anything that close. I was looking at possibly modifying the camera to see if it could be adjusted – the same way many inexpensive webcams can. But no joy.

The Insta360 GO 3S’s size allows it to be placed in small areas and carried with you wherever you go. This means you’re more likely to have it with you when you see something you want to film. Sometimes, these things are quite small and close up.

Usually, we bring out our phone for these and perhaps a small LED light, but wouldn’t it be great if we could do it on the GO 3S as well? It’s not that the GO 3S is useless without macro, but the ability to shoot macro video in small spaces would be extremely handy.

Smartphone lenses to the rescue

Luke overcomes this problem by utilising a macro lens from a cheap smartphone lens kit. You can buy the macro lens individually for about $7, too. You’re not going to get RED quality footage with this combo, for sure, but this lens will be good enough for use with the GO 3S.

And it is good enough, as Luke demonstrates in his video. The big issue, of course, is that this lens doesn’t attach directly to the Insta360 GO 3S, so Luke had to design and 3D print an adapter. This joins the two together, allowing the GO 3S to see through the macro lens and focus on close objects.

The results look pretty good, too!

Luke has also made the files available to purchase if you’d like to print your own adapter. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go buy a smartphone macro lens and fire up my 3D printer!

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