The Salvaged Workbench.

Industrial 25mm f/1.4 C-mount security camera lenses are designed for tiny 1/3" CCTV sensors and lack the flange focal distance to focus to infinity on Micro Four Thirds mirrorless bodies.

Using a junior hand hacksaw, coarse sandpaper, and two-part epoxy, Dylan filed down the rear aluminum threaded collar by 3.2mm, bringing the rear optic element close enough to the Panasonic Lumix GF1 sensor to achieve true infinity focus. The resulting lens delivers razor-sharp centre sharpness with legendary swirly peripheral bokeh and vivid vignetting.

By mounting a fast 58mm prime lens backwards onto extension tubes with an improvised cardboard coupler, Dylan achieved genuine 4:1 optical super-macro magnification onto the camera sensor with zero glass distortion.

Paired with a digital pinhole crafted by piercing a soda-can aluminum disc with a sewing needle and mounting it in a body cap, capturing images with infinite depth of field and dreamlike diffraction.

A completely zero-electricity acoustic record player built by salvaging the ultra-low friction fluid dynamic spindle bearing from a dead 3.5-inch desktop hard drive.

A 7-inch 45 RPM vinyl disc is clamped directly to the HDD motor hub with blue-tack. An ordinary sewing needle poked through the tip of a tightly rolled sheet of 80gsm A4 printer paper acts as both tonearm, stylus, and mechanical acoustic amplifier horn, spinning by hand to play loud, crisp music.

A miniaturized Veroboard stripboard implementation of Jay Silver's Drawdio musical synthesizer circuit, adapted to clamp onto a 2B wooden pencil with copper foil tape.

Using a classic 555-timer IC wired as an astable multivibrator with high input impedance, touching the pencil lead and completing a circuit through the human body and drawn graphite strokes modulates the pitch, turning pencil sketches into live sound.

Minimalist robotic locomotion made from severed toothbrush heads, pager vibration motors, and 3V coin cells. The asymmetric angled bristles transform high-frequency motor vibration into rapid directional scurrying across the tabletop.

Before affordable consumer camera drones existed, Dylan used the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK) firmware on compact PowerShot cameras to run custom uBASIC scripting, intervalometer triggers, and automated bracketed HDR photography.

Rigged cameras were lofted via foil kites and weather balloons for aerial imaging, alongside a 48-hour time-lapse documenting a homemade water-bottle barometer showing fluid meniscus levels rising and falling in lockstep with atmospheric pressure while cumulus cloud fronts sweep past.

A deep archive of Dylan's original lab notebooks, tutorials, astrophotography journals, and maker projects preserved directly from the earlier Concrete5 CMS incarnation of 2ne1.com.