IMAGING

System camera

Black felt

Pringles can

Standard lens, but assembled backwards

Make this macro extension tube out of $5 worth of materials.

Macro Photography
On a Budget
Pringles-can lens extender produces dazzling
ultra close-ups for peanuts. By Haje Jan Kamps

Photography is often seen as an expensive hobby, it against your camera body, you can take photos but here’s a way to create a lot of fun for very little up close. In theory, the farther away from the money: a macro extension tube you can make for camera you hold your lens, the higher magni-less than $5 worth of materials. fication you get. The problem is that the “air”

between the camera and lens element can’t have any light leaking in. Furthermore, there cannot be any lens movement when you take photos, as this will result in blurry photos. The solution? A macro extension tube, which holds the lens and shuts out light.

Extension tubes and bellows can be bought, but that’s definitely more expensive and probably a lot less gratifying than building something yourself. For our tube, we’ll use a Pringles can,

Illustration by Damien Scogin

Macro Tube Theory

The concept of a macro tube is as old as photography itself. Normally, a lens takes incoming parallel light and focuses it down onto the film or imaging chip. By turning the lens the wrong way around, the opposite happens: light focused in on a small area is refracted to become more parallel.

With the lens in its wrong-way configuration, either by using a reversal ring or by just holding