elawgrrl photography: September 2010

Confession: I have a teeny tiny obsession with fisheye photography. So imagine my delight when I found out Photojojo had fisheye lenses for your phone camera! This would take my Photo-A-Day project (aka 365) to a whole new level! You get a metal disc with removable adhesive (think the gummy stuff used for paper inserts) to which the magnetic lens attaches. It works with almost any phone camera since you don't have to worry about connectors. Great idea!

It arrived:

Yay! Then sadness. It quickly became clear that the combination of the not-so-strong gummy adhesive and the powerful magnet on the lens were not going to allow the lens to stay attached for very long. I should have been tipped off by the fact that the lens came with multiple metal rings. What's a fisheye obsessed girl to do?

Hack it! I figured if you removed the adhesive from the metal ring, you could superglue it on to the phone. Also, since the ring was blocking the flash, I would cut the ring down so it wouldn't interfere with the flash.

I enlisted Karen's brother, Mark, to assist with this process. It would be VERY dangerous for the iPhone and me to try this alone. Mark cut the ring down - with safety goggles! We removed the adhesive. Next, Mark figured out that we need to scratch the iPhone surface a bit so that the superglue would adhere. Here is the result: