DIY Telephoto Lens

The other day I saw a bloke walking along the top of a crane several hundred meters away. So I got out my binoculars and watched him for a bit to figure out what he was doing and how he behaved a couple dozen meters above the ground. The budding photographer in me immediately suggested that I try to photograph what I was seeing through the binoculars. Sure, enough my little camera's snout fit right into the eyepiece and I could see the faraway scene on the LCD screen. Unfortunately, though I was unable to hold it still enough to snap a reasonable photo. It was clear that I would need some sort of apparatus to hold the binoculars and camera together. I spent a few days brainstorming suitable platforms and attachment mechanisms. Finally an idea began to form, so I went down to the hardware store under my house and bought a tripod-sized bolt. They made a big deal about it not being "standard" (metric) and hard to find, but finally found one that fit into my camera. Unfortunately, it was more than 2cm long (probably an inch). I brought it home and realized that it was actually the perfect length for the platform I was planning on using.

A piece of cardboard and some twisty ties from the box my lamp came in. Note the camera-sized slot cut in the bottom so that the lenses line up.

I had to cut a hole in it for the belly of the binoculars to fit in.

The bolt was the perfect length after penetrating the box my new Apple keyboard came in.

The fully assembled apparatus during filming of video below. There's nothing yet holding the cardboard the binoculars are attached to to the keyboard box, but there could be very easily.

So what can I use my new telephoto lens on? As you already know, it was very windy and cloudy yesterday, so I figured that there wouldn't be much of a sunset. But I pointed my apparatus towards the western horizon anyway. What I captured amazed me.

One of the cool things about telephoto photography is that it can make things that we're not used to being close to, like clouds, seem much larger in relation to foreground objects, like trees, that we are used to being close to. My first little telephoto video demonstrates this fact nicely, I think.

Behold: revver(618077)