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How to make a pinhole lens from a coke can

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Pinhole photography is photography at its most fundamental. Based on the camera obscure that came before it, the principle is essentially the same. The only real difference here is that there’s something to capture the image. In this case, the digital sensor of your mirrorless camera or DSLR.

In this video, Sean from Fotodiox walks us through making a pinhole lens. It’s a lens that pretty much any of us can make just for the cost of a can of coke – or your soda of choice. That’s because it’s made from the can itself, along with a bit of gaffer tape. It’s a pretty simple project to try.

Fotodiox release new auto extension tubes for shooting macro with L mount cameras

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Extension tubes are one of the best ways to get started in macro. They’re easy to use with your existing lenses to be able to get started shooting really close-up subjects and they’re a lot cheaper than buying an actual dedicated macro lens. Up until recently, there haven’t been too many options when it comes to extension tubes for L mount, though. There are a couple, but not many.

Well now, Fotodiox has entered the fray with their new 15mm and 35mm L mount Auto Macro Tubes. The “auto” bit means that they maintain electronic communication between the lens and camera, giving you full control over your aperture and autofocus system when using them.

Photographer adapts a 1984 Ghostbusters toy lens to a mirrorless camera

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As we have already seen, you can make a working lens from pretty much anything. Sean of Fotodiox decided to use a toy lens and adapt it to his Sony a7R. If you’re a Ghostbusters fan, you are going to love this: Sean found a GhostZapper toy and used its plastic projector lens to take photos in 2022.

How to make a DIY telephoto pinhole lens from a Pringles can

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There’s an unusual amount of photo-related stuff you can make from a simple Pringles can: a macro flash diffuser, an extension tube, or a “saberstrip.” Sean of Fotodiox brings you another cheap and simple Pringles project: a DIY pinhole lens. In this video, he’ll show you how to do it and list all the things you need, and I bet you already have most of these at home.

How to make a DIY camera lens using a magnifying glass and cheap macro bellows

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If you ever want to experiment with optics, making your own lenses (or adapting old ones to fit on current cameras) is definitely a good way to do it. Lenses now have gotten pretty complex, though, with elements acting in pairs or groups that are often too complicated to try to reassemble in your own custom housing (especially if it’s held together with gaffer tape).

In this video, though, the folks at Fotodiox show us how we can make our own lens using nothing more than some macro bellows and a magnifying glass. This is about as simple as a lens gets and it’s absolutely not going to give you the same results as an expensive GM lens (not even close), but it’s a lot of fun to experiment with and can produce some pretty neat in-camera effects.

Fotodiox’s new PRONTO adapter lets you autofocus Leica M lenses on your Fuji X cameras

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Fotodiox has announced their new Fotodiox Pro PRONTO AF lens adapter that lets you autofocus Leica M lenses on your Fujifilm X mount mirrorless cameras. The adapter was initially announced a little while ago, but it’s just now being made available.

Yes, Leica M lenses are manual focus lenses, but this adapter adds autofocus capability for other camera systems. This isn’t Fotodiox’s first Leica M autofocus adapter, having previously released one for Sony, but this one now lets you use them with Fuji, too.

Fotodiox has announced its new Pro Fusion “Smart” AF adapter for Canon EF to Leica L mount

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Fotodiox has announced their new EF-L Fusion Smart AF adapter for Canon EF lenses to let you mount them to most L mount bodies. It guarantees infinity focus, full electronic communication and seems to offer full autofocus, aperture control and image stabilisation (with compatible lenses).

The EF-L Fusion Smart AF adapter is compatible with both full-frame EF lenses, as well as the APS-C EF-S lenses. Of course, you obviously won’t get full-frame coverage with crop lenses. It features all-metal construction, for what Fotodiox claim is a precise fit with “no play, gap or wiggling”.

These lens adapters turn your vintage glass into tilt-shift lenses for modern mirrorless cameras

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RLcj1cz2AQ

The tilt-shift effect has become really popular in recent years as more people have discovered that these lenses exist and the miniaturising effect they can have. But tilt-shift lenses are expensive, so many people resort to faking the effect in post. No matter how much work you put into it, though, an effect you add on the computer is never going to look quite like shooting it for real.

But if your wallet’s crying at the price of tilt-shift lenses, don’t worry. It turns out that Fotodiox has a range of adapters available that let you turn many older regular lenses into tilt-shift lenses. In this video, NOMO Films takes a look at them and some of the types of photos and footage they can let you shoot.

The Fotodiox DLX Stretch adapters let you turn any lens into a macro

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With the advent of mirrorless, lens adapters have become very popular. With such a short flange distance, mirrorless cameras offer so many more lens options. You might not always get the full benefit of the lens, and some might kill your camera, but overall they’re extremely useful.

Fotodiox have just launched a new series of lens adapters for Sony, Micro Four Thirds and Fuji mirrorless cameras for a range of lenses. There are 8 different lens mounts available, and you can even lengthen the adapter. This means it essentially acts like an extension tube, offering you closer focusing with any lens.

How to get that cinematic look with an f/1.2 lens in bright sunlight

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Shooting stills in bright sunlight with fast glass with super wide apertures is fairly easy. You just knock down your ISO and speed up your shutter until you have your exposure under control. But when you’re shooting video, that’s not really an option if you want that cinematic look. Your shutter speed’s generally locked at 1/50th of a second for 24p video (1/100th for 50fps, 1/125th for 60fps, etc).

It’s a bit like working outdoors in bright conditions with flash that doesn’t support high speed sync. Once you hit that sync speed your shutter simply won’t go any faster. The go to option in both cases is neutral density. Filters that go over your lens to reduce the amount of light entering it and hitting your sensor. This video from weird lens guru, Mathieu Stern, shows a slightly different approach.

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