{"id":10416,"date":"2025-11-20T15:45:53","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10416"},"modified":"2025-11-21T15:09:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:09:24","slug":"photographs-through-the-eyepiece-of-a-kaleidoscope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10416","title":{"rendered":"Photographs through the eyepiece of a Kaleidoscope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As part of my U3A photography group project, under the heading of ‘Symmetry’, I thought I would try using a Kaleidoscope and photograph through the eyepiece. Apart from the image not being quite symmetrical, there were other issues that need to be accommodated. I tried a number of different lenses, and my phone’s camera, to try and get a ‘perfect’ image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not so easy as it sounds…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let’s start with a 27mm lens on my APS-C camera. Closest focusing gives me this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kaleidoscope through a 27mm lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The best crop I could manage was this:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Crop showing the view using a 27mm lens<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Not much of a view but it is sharp. This is how I set the camera up – notice the gap between the lens and kaleidoscope due to the closest focussing distance:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
View of the camera and kaleidoscope using a 27mm lens<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Next I am showing the view using an 80mm macro lens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kaleidoscope through an 80mm macro lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This gets me closer so there is more to see. This is the cropped (and rotated) version and is nice and sharp:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Crop showing the view using the 80mm macro lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And this is the setup. The lens is a lot closer to the kaleidoscope than the 27mm lens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
View of the camera and kaleidoscope using the macro lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I also tried using the camera on my phone – I used the macro feature of the camera:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kaleidoscope through my phone’s camera on macro setting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This gets me in close and it is is OK but lacks detail. The following photo shows that it is right up close to the Kaleidoscope:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This is two views showing the phone against the kaleidoscope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For this next image I tried a budget 50mm enlarger lens attached via bellows to the camera. This allowed me to get the lens close to the viewing hole on the Kaleidoscope:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kaleidoscope through a budget 50mm enlarger lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This gave a wider field of view. Sharpness is OK but could be better. This is the setup – note that this lens is inside the bellows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
View of the setup using budget Paterson 50mm enlarger lens. The lens is mounted inside the bellows to enable infinity focussing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The final trial was using a vintage Wray 3.75inch enlarger lens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kaleidoscope through a vintage 3.75in enlarger lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is OK with reasonable sharpness but has a narrow field of view. The setup is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Setup using the vintage enlarger lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have one other lens to try; a have a better quality vintage enlarger lens which is worth a go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a #imagedump of the photos taken, you may notice other images that I have taken:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
#imagedump of the photos for this exercise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This has been an interesting exercise and I have learned a lot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of my U3A photography group project, under the heading of ‘Symmetry’, I thought I would try using a Kaleidoscope and photograph through the eyepiece. Apart from the image not being quite symmetrical, there were other issues that need to be accommodated. I tried a number of different lenses, and my phone’s camera, to … Continue reading “Photographs through the eyepiece of a Kaleidoscope”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,19,145,100,3,65,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camera-club","category-close-up","category-imagedump","category-photo-effects","category-photography","category-technical","category-tests-and-trials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10416"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10436,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416\/revisions\/10436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}