Last year we explained how to turn spare parts from an old DVD drive into a macro lens for your camera phone. We had a spare DVD drive and decided to show you how effective this simple DIY is.
The original hack came to us courtesy of MAKE magazine. We were impressed with the photos they took and finally had a donor drive on hand to sacrifice for an in-house experiment. It's super easy to do, you'll need an old DVD drive (doesn't matter if it's a burner or just a standard drive), some basic tools like a screwdriver—we used tin snips, because we're impatient—and a razor blade to slice through the glue around the lens mount.
Watch the video above to see the setup and results of our experiment including macro video shots of everything from bullets to pencils.
Have a favorite DIY hack you want to share or one from the Lifehacker archives you'd like to see us do a video tutorial for? Let's hear about it in the comments.