Magnifier and Macrophotography Phone Stand

When you’re out in the field trying to identify or document some small organism, the camera on a typical cell phone can provide excellent magnification. Holding the phone with one hand while the other hand interacts with the magnifier/camera app, however, introduces camera motion that makes precise focusing difficult and focus-bracketing impossible. This stand holds your phone at a fixed and known distance from your small subjects, making it easier to use manual focus, and allows serial imaging over time (time-lapse) or distance (focus-bracketing). This stand was developed as the capstone project for the Iowa Master Naturalist program.

Hardware required:

Assembly

1. Pull 8-32 hex nuts into corresponding press fit holes in foot, table, and 8-32 knobs, by using an 8-32 machine screw. Tighten until nut seats firmly into hole. Then remove the screw.

a. Foot
 

b. Table

c. 8-32 knobs. Leave the 8-32 screw in the knob.

2. Affix tripod mount to the foot. Make sure to align the plate of the rectangular T-nut to the corresponding hole in the foot. Check to see that you have about three threads available for the tripod mount. If the truss head 1/4-20 screw is too long there won’t be any threads left for the tripod. You can use washers under the truss head to expose more threads.

3. Assemble phone clamps.

a. Pull 4-40 nuts into 4-40 knobs. Leave the 4-40 screw in the knob.

b. Place your phone on the table to get an idea of fit and to choose which edge-clamp hole to use.

c. Pull 4-40 nuts into edge-clamp press fit holes.

d. Put a short piece of latex tubing on each clamp to provide grip.

4. Assemble stand.

a. Fasten table to column with 8/32 knob.

b. Fasten column to foot with 8/32 knob.

c. Insert upper 90-degree lock into column.

d. Insert lower 90-degree lock into column.

e. Insert field plate.

f. Assemble phone clamp

Notes: 

1. Slide 90-degree locks into notches to engage. Slide locks toward table, out of the way, to fold the stand.
2.  The rectangular T-Nut is used in this project is a Hillman Model #2514-P, available as an 8-pack on Amazon or, in the U.S. at vendors that carry Hillman fasteners, such as Ace Hardware.
3. Cell phone model in the illustration above was Cell phone by Poly by Google [CC-BY]