SAM Daily Times

The world's tiniest fisheye camera

Twenty five year old student Greg Dash was frustrated. He wanted to take "fisheye" style camera pictures without having to pay for an expensive lens, or fiddle around with a smartphone app. He wanted something light and small that he could pull from his pocket at a moment's notice. Unfortunately such a device did not exist. So, he went ahead and invented it. Measuring just four centimeters long and two centimeters high, the "Little Cyclops" has only two buttons and no viewing screen. 

The Little Cyclops had raised $100,000 as donations, almost double the initial $53,000 target. "It's all been a bit overwhelming," said Dash. "At one point I was getting an email every seven minutes and it has been just impossible to respond to everyone." Dash says he first came up with the idea for the camera late last year when he was unable to find an affordable fisheye lens to use with his own digital SLR camera. 

A manufacturer which he doesn't wish to reveal as he is still in the pre-production phase was then sourced to make a limited run of 1,000 devices completely from scratch which will be sold on a first come first served basis. The cameras are priced at $100 each and orders have already arrived from Japan and Taiwan. "It's been amazing as there has been interest from everywhere really, all over the world," Dash said.

"It's going to be able to do something that you can't do on any smartphone and would usually cost hundreds of pounds but I can do it for about £50 ($76)." 

For now, however, the main priority is to continue with his studies while indulging his passion for photography and camera development when he can. "It's not a business really, just a project that I'm working on to see what we can do with cameras and have a bit of fun with them,"  His main priority remains studying towards a PhD on the economic and social impact of wind energy development at the University of Aberystwyth in his native Wales.

The success of Little Cyclops however has helped him pay-off mounting student fees and encouraged him to further test his powers of invention. He said. "I really enjoy my PhD and the work that I do so if the money I make from the cameras makes that a bit easier or more comfortable for me then all the better."

cnn.com