I’ve engineered a fair number of inexpensive DIY camera hacks. This one is by far the cheapest: it’s free! Simply place a drop of water on the phone’s lens, carefully turn the device over, and the suspended droplet serves as a liquid lens. Behold:

Droplet images are dreamy, blurred at the periphery, and just a little bit…wet. But the tiny subjects underneath are magnified with sufficient resolution for an impromptu microscope. Indeed, I started playing around with the technique after reading that the U.C. Davis iPhone microscope team experimented with water before moving to a solid lens.

After spending a few hours this weekend with a slightly moist iPhone, I am pleased to report the following:

• It works!
• Larger, rounder droplets lead to higher magnification, and as the droplet evaporates and shrinks magnification decreases.
• The liquid lens is jiggly and sensitive to vibrations. The phone should be placed on a stable platform for maximum clarity. For these photos, I coopted a pair of short drinking glasses as a stand.
• Image quality is not as sharp as that provided by solid, commercially available clip-on lenses like Olloclip. But hey. You get what you pay for!
• Water is not generally good for cell phone electronics, so be careful when applying the droplet.

Below are my attempts at iPhone water-graphs.

If you try the technique, I’d love to see your results! Drop a link in the comments, or send me an email.