This Photographer Built His Own Lens and The Results Are Gorgeous

Creating your own DIY lens for photography can be both simple and surprisingly effective. With just a few materials—some drainage pipe, magnifying glasses, and a little ingenuity—you can build a lens that opens up new creative possibilities. The idea here isn’t about high-end equipment but rather about experimenting, learning, and having fun with a setup that’s low-cost and custom-made.

Coming to you from Shoot On Film -- by Ari Jaaksi, this practical video takes you through Jaaksi’s process of building a DIY lens from scratch. He starts with a trip to the hardware store, where he finds drainage pipes and magnifying glasses. The glasses match the pipe’s diameter, so they’ll fit together snugly, creating the essential parts of the lens. Using his Graflex Speed Graphic as a platform, Jaaksi removes the existing lens and sets up his new creation with ease. This type of camera, with its own shutter and modular build, is perfect for experimenting with unusual gear, allowing you to create something unique without complicated modifications.

Once Jaaksi has assembled the pipe and glass components, he moves on to crafting a custom lens board. Using hardboard from an old IKEA drawer, he cuts a piece, drills a hole, and attaches the pipe, then paints the entire assembly black to reduce light reflections. When the paint dries, he fixes the lenses to each end of the pipe, completing his DIY lens. This simple setup not only fits perfectly on his Graflex but also maintains a unique, quirky appearance thanks to a leftover handle he left on the lens.

The video also covers Jaaksi’s method for calculating the lens’ focal length and aperture, crucial details to ensure proper exposure and other parameters. For a rough calculation, he uses the diameter of the drainage pipe as the lens diameter. Then, by focusing the camera on various objects and measuring the results, he calculates the focal length using an online tool. This approach isn’t precise to the millimeter but offers enough accuracy for the experiments he has in mind. His lens’ final specifications come out to approximately f/2.6, a wide aperture that he quickly realizes may be too soft for clear images. To address this, he creates a set of Waterhouse aperture plates with different-sized holes, which allow him to reduce the aperture for sharper results.

With the lens ready, Jaaksi takes some test shots, experimenting with the different apertures to see the effect on sharpness and depth of field. As expected, the wider apertures yield softer, more dreamy images, while the smaller apertures bring out sharper details. He shares examples from his test shots, both indoors and outdoors, demonstrating how much character a DIY lens like this can add to your photos. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Jaaksi.