DIY: A Kaleidoscopic Filter

Have you recently visited your grandparents and discovered some awesome 70s memorabilia? Yeah, us too, and we had an idea. Let's make a kaleidoscope filter for our camera. So turn on some old school Grateful Dead music and get creative. This is the perfect DIY to give your next roll of film a psychedelic look.

We shot a roll of Lomography Color Negative 35 mm ISO 100 with a Canon EA-1 equipped with a 50 mm lens around the city and the kaleidoscopic effect gave a spinning look to our pictures.

Let's Get Crafty

What you need is simple. Grab a piece of cardboard. We used the top of an aluminium tray that has a reflective surface. This length will be enough to get a shape that can fit in front of a lens.

Divide your cardboard in half, take one half and draw slices of 2 cm each, then fold them over. We cut it in half in order to have a generous center for the image, but you can try to make a longer tube and see how much you can see through.

Take an acrylic mirror sheet that can work as a reflective surface, and slice it to make strips the width of your folds. Usually they have an adhesive surface, glue them onto the cardboard and leave the last strip empty to close your circle with some tape.

Once you have closed the shape you can now use it in front of your camera when taking a picture. Ready to got out and shoot?

If you decide to use it with your Lomography Simple Use Film Camera, make sure to always use your flash to illuminate the scene as the kaleidoscope could block some of the light coming through the lens, resulting in underexposed images.

This simple yet creative filter can give a new vision and a refreshing look to your photos. A location or a place that you might have shot many times can turn out to be something completely out of this world.

Do you like this filter and effect on your pictures? Share with us your thoughts and upload your results to our community

written by eparrino on 2022-08-16 #gear #tutorials #diy #experimental #filter #simple-use-camera #kalediscope