There are some very daft suggestions and tutorials on TikTok. As I discovered when I tried a few of the photography hacks, there are several that it goes without saying that you just shouldn’t try. This one might take the cake though. After watching a video of a ‘hack’ where a photographer appears to deliberately scratch his lens with a rock to create a ‘cool effect’, one viewer actually copied it and fully destroyed her camera lens. Photographer and TikToker Illumitatiana posted a video of her using a rock to scratch the front of her Canon 50mm f/1.8 in response to a viral video made by Andres Videography where he appeared to do the same to his lens.
However, the original poster Andres didn’t directly scratch the front of his actual lens, he had a glass UV filter on the front, so in total only destroyed about $10 worth of equipment. Unlike Illumitatiana, who fully and brutally killed her lens.
Reply to @lieutenant252 ♬ Bad Girls – M.I.A. “I was so curious to see what a photo from that camera would look like I actually destroyed one of my lenses,” she says, “Then I set it down and got ready to take a couple of portraits and to my surprise, it actually gave it this glow.” Indeed.
#stitch with @video.andres #greenscreen #photography ♬ original sound – Illumitati ? This is just another completely bonkers example of how stupid the internet can be at times. Fortunately, it seems that no other cameras or lenses were fatally wounded in the experiment. Andres has several other comedy videos on how to clean your lenses, for example suggesting that gravel can work really well!
Reply to @retrorevi #donttrythisathome #Photography #tipsandtricks #diy #hack#canon #sony #camera#triggerwarning ♬ Love – ?? <3 According to her website, however, 20-year-old Tati is known for her influencer portraits and photography tips and has millions of followers. Apparently, she also has money to burn! Readers should not that there’s no reason to destroy perfectly good, albeit ‘cheap’ lenses, you can easily create that ‘glow’ in post without hurting any of your equipment. Just sayin’.
