An Angle Viewfinder for an IPhone

I made this viewfinder as a detachable accessory to my iPhone S6 to take pictures of objects that are situated within 0 … 90 degrees respectively to the photographer’s line of sight; it might be useful for those who’d like to take a picture of a beautiful ceiling, say, in a palace; pictures from unusual points of view - the angle being within 75 and 90 degrees - can also be taken with this viewfinder. It's also possible, of course, to make a similar device for a smartphone or a tablet.

Several pictures taken with this device are presented here. A picture should be flipped to 180 degrees and cropped to remove the unreflected part of the image - this is a technical requirement, I would say. Further alterations of the picture are in the artistic domain, they depend on the photographer’s ideas.

Materials:

a piece of scrap mirror 2…3 mm thick

a piece of sheet iron 0.5 … 0.7 mm thick

a piece of plastic 2…4 mm thick

Tools:

To draw flat patterns – ruler, pencil, marking tools (scriber and punch), protractor

To make pieces of sheet iron – scissors for metal sheet, drill with drilling bits, two clamps, fine file, long nose pliers

To make mirror piece – two clamps, guide, glass cutter, wooden block with sandpaper 100

To assemble metal parts – soldering iron

To make plastic cover – fretsaw, fine or medium file

Consumables:

White glue, solder with flux

I drew the flat pattern on paper, cut it out and glued onto a piece of sheet metal (two or three drops of glue, just to hold the pattern in place while marking the contour). Then I followed the pattern’s contour with a scriber and marked the centre of the hole with a punch; after this operation the paper pattern can be removed. It’s also possible to draw the part directly on the metal sheet by means of a scriber. 

Then I cut the part out by using a pair of small scissors for sheet metal. The corners of the part should be chamfered and edges dulled to avoid any harm for your fingers when you’ll handle the part later.

After finishing this operation, I proceeded to the drilling.

You should take some precautions when drilling the hole to avoid the deformation of the hole’s edges by drilling bits. First, the piece will be tightly clamped to a plain wooden board fixed to the workbench as shown in the picture. Second, you begin drilling with a bit of a smaller diameter, say, 2 mm; then you take a bigger bit. The sequence might be like: 2 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm, 8 mm.

The hole’s edges will be dulled after the completion of the hole.

After the hole was drilled, I plied the part with long nose pliers according to the dash lines in the drawing. 

It’s also useful to slightly ply the ends of the plied elements as shown in the picture to increase their ‘snapping ability’.

This part will be manufactured in the same way that the base. The ready part is shown in the picture (I removed the shadows in the background to make the part itself more noticeable). 

I used a 3 mm thick piece of scrap mirror glass that was readily available at my workshop.

So, I glued a piece of paper masking tape on this piece of glass, marked the necessary lines and cut the tape to get a 15 x 12 mm rectangle.

I divided each cutting operation into two steps: scoring the line and breaking the glass along the line.

It’s highly advisable to wear safety gloves when performing the following operations.

In step one, the piece of mirror will be clamped to the wooden board with a guide (a narrow wooden plank) above the piece. The mirror surface must look up. The guide is placed so that the cutting wheel follows the line drawn on the paper pattern (see the picture). 

A glass cutter has several wheels, each for a specific thickness of glass in millimetres (see the picture). As you see, the wheel number 3 has been chosen for this operation.

Score a line over the total length of the piece; make it in a single move while applying moderate force on the cutter. 

In step two, the piece will be clamped to a metal angle as shown in the picture (I used a piece of aluminum angle) with sharp corner to make the break line as clear as possible. Put a wooden plank on the other side of the break line and press to break the glass.

After the mirror rectangle is cut, smooth out its sides and dull its edges by using a wooden block with sandpaper 100.

The mirror will be installed in the holder as shown in the drawing. You’ll need to put some glue on the side edges of the mirror to fix it well in the holder.

The back cover for the holder is made of 3…4 mm thick plastic (I used two pieces of 2 mm thick plastic); the dimensions of the cover are 15 x 12 mm. The cover will be glued to both the holder and the mirror.

After the mirror is installed in the mirror holder, this unit will be soldered to the base. 

The positioning of the holder will be done according to the pictures.