
Dagu service droid
Bought me a set of mini Iphone lenses on Ebay, cost less then 10€. Since the viewing angle of the Raspberry Pi camera is pretty narrow I decided to try out a wide angle lens. My camera board is fitted to a pan/tilt kit on my Service droid robot. The narrow viewing angle makes it hard to accurately remote control the robot. I couldn’t resist the Iphone lenses when I saw how cheap they are. To fit them to an Iphone you have to stick a metal ring around the camera. The lens has a magnetic edge to make it stick to the ring. I was a bit worried if I would succeed in attaching it to the Raspberry Pi camera board but in the end it was quite easy.
I used a small piece of polystyrene plate and cut it to approximately the size of the Raspberry Pi camera board. I then drilled 3 holes in it. Two 2mm holes in the edge of the plate and 1 big 8mm hole in the middle. I used M2 nuts and bolts to fit the plate to the camera board. I then stuck the ring to the plate and fitted it to the camera board.
Then I could fit the mini lens to the ring 🙂
The difference is not that big and the photos and videos made with the lens are not as sharp. But still it was worth the trouble. Here are 2 photos made with the camera board without and with the lens fitted:
Without the lens fitted:
With the lens fitted: