Most of the pictures shown in the gallery have been made either with unremarkable cameras or with cameras shown in the collection. You will find on this page some things that can be done for cheap and produce unexpected results.

A home-made f/16 750mm for 1 euro

All that is needed is a camera, a pair of binoculars and a piece of wood. For best results, the camera and binoculars must be accurately aligned (hence the need for a wooden frame) and the camera has to be fitted out with a short telephoto lens (here 100mm) to avoid a very strong vignetting. The focal length of this assembly, realised with soviet-made 7x50 binoculars, is approximately 750mm, making the aperture f/16.

A sunshade must be put at the binocular - lens junction. The lens on the camera must be focused to infinity, focusing being made with the binoculars. It must be used at full aperture only : with this optical system, stepping down the diaphragm won't increase the depth of field but will decrease the image quality. The grey thing at the back of the camera is a mirror to look in the viewfinder when the assembly is on the ground.

The most skeptical of you can have a look at the pictures of the 08/11/1999 total solar eclipse pictures made with this assembly.