Tom and Tripp from Spitfire hooked me up with a SWEET Flip Mino HD, and told me you could hack it to fit wide angle lenses. After some research, and a quick trip to Home Depot for supplies, the defacing began.
After sanding, fitting, and TONS of gluing… this is what I wound up with:
This hack is not pretty on the outside. Actually… it looks really bad. It scratches the camera body up pretty bad (I was even careful)… then you get glue all over it that discolors the plastic. But I’m all for form over function… so let’s take a look from inside the camera.
Here is a screenshot of my toolbox straight from the camera, without the wide angle lens:
This is the same shot, but with the wide angle lens on the camera:
There is quite a difference with the lens on. I feel like the lens helps the image quality a bit as well… especially with bright light sources. You can get cool light washes that you couldn’t get without the lens. Another big plus… the weight of the lens seems to help with the shaky picture that comes from the Flip straight out of the box.
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Werd! Ive been looking into doing this as well with mine. Are you able to take the lens off at will or is it permanent? Where’d you get the lens?
The lens comes with a series of step-up rings (3 I think). I chose the 30.5-37mm ring… because it had the largest aperture where it meets the camera. Once you have that attached, you can screw the lens (or any other 37mm lens to it as you wish.
I picked up the lens kit at Best Buy for about $40.
:D
Cool! Thanks man. Im gonna pick one up as well.