Turn Them Christmas Ornemants to a 360 Fisheye Lens

Christmas it coming. It is a wonderful opportunity to get them shiny tree ornaments out of the storage and decorate your tree.

Have you given any thought to the day after Christmas? Under the tree there are tons of presents, everyone is opening the presents. Let me add a DIYP present to the heap. (Click the image to see a larger view)

Reader Simon*B has a great use for the tree ornaments for the day after the sock is empty.

This is a fun and fast project, at the end of which, you’ll be able to take 360 images with your digital camera. (There is a “slight” fish eye effect that will make Rudolf’s nose like a button compared to yours but that’s part of the fun).

Materials needed:
– 1 Digital camera
– 1 Silvery shiny Xmas ball
– 1 Iron wire
– 1 Tripod shoe (not a must)

Here’s how to make the ball in 3 simple steps:

1. Connect the tripod shoe to the camera. Don’t fasten it all the way through. Just make it kinda loose. Loose enough to wrap a wire between the camera and the shoe. Another option it to wrap the wire on the lens (watch that lens, though).

2. Place the ball on the other end of the wire using some tape. The wire should be long enough to enable focus so make sure it is longer then your lens’s minimal focus lens. If you are using a point and shoot, you are in luck – switch to macro mode.

3. Focus the camera on the christmasball – you are good to go!

Here are some samples by Simon, Watch his entire collection here:

Some shootin’ tips:

– You don’t need to look through the view finder, you can hold the camera a bit further from your head.

– There is absolutely no way to avoid being in the picture. If you can pull this off, there’s a free trip to the north poll and a visit to Santa’s workshop (Provided you can get Santa to give you address of the workshop ;)

– Post your images to the DIYP pool.