Plaubel Makina 67 diopter wanted!

[mani]

The Plaubel Makina 67 diopters are a frustratingly non-standard diameter (possibly 16 or 17mm threads).
Because of this annoying design-decision, it's almost impossible to find the right correction lens on eBay or elsewhere.

But I have a feeling that there are hidden resources out there, which I haven't heard of...?

Does anyone know a store or dealer who specializes in this type of accessory? Anyone who knows another camera diopter that might fit?

All the historical threads I've read on this subject, suggest going to an optician and having a custom diopter made.
Has anyone ever done such a thing? Do opticians like this actually exist?

I have absolutely no idea where I might go in Sweden to do such a thing, and I'm pretty certain I'd be treated as a madman for suggesting any such project.
But maybe you know where a custom diopter could be made? Maybe there are companies who actually do this?

And if you have a Makina 67 diopter for +1.5 - I'll buy it!

 

[Retro-Grouch]

I feel your pain! I've gone to ridiculous lengths to find diopters for all of my cameras that I can. Unfortunately, I have no suggestions for the Makina, and my experience with opticians has been universally fruitless. Most are affiliated with big corporate entities and will have nothing to do with small custom jobs (at least here in the US).
I would suggest that you repeatedly try searching eBay with various keywords. After almost two years of searching, a -2 diopter for my Hasselblad prism suddenly showed up, so... My feeling is that if it was ever made, it's out there somewhere, and someone will eventually realize that it can be sold. Often for an exorbitant amount, but so go the laws of supply and demand.

 

[Out to Lunch]

These guys

| eBay

sell a few of them -ask them to be on the lookout for a +1.5. Cheers, OtL

 

[mani]

Thanks for the comments.

Testing some other diopters I own, I noticed the (pre-M10) Leica-M diopter fits nicely inside the recess (obviously without screwing into place).

I'd need to put a couple of drops of some sort of adhesive - and here I'd need something secure (so it didn't just fall off when carrying around), but easy to remove (if I ever find the correct diopter).
So if anyone is a glue expert - let me know what I should do!

As a sidenote, even though volume for cameras like the Makina 67 would be very low, I have no idea why the Chinese manufacturers aren't in the business of making diopters?
When I noticed the Leica diopter was an ok (interim) solution, I decided I'd buy two more (one as a spare to carry with me, in case my glued-on unit might fall off).
Well, first I should check how much it had cost me. Almost fell over when I saw I'd paid almost $200 for it. 😵 It seems like some self-protective amnesia had kicked-in, to make me forget this insanity.

I recently bought an entire Fuji-mount lens from China for less than this diopter had cost. Surely they would make higher margins selling diopters for (let's say) 100 bucks, than designing and building whole lenses for 150?
Anyone who knows someone in the Chinese lens industry?

 

[Retro-Grouch]

Sounds like a drop of rubber cement would work to hold the M diopter in place. And yeah, the price of those is an affront to common decency!

 

[Archlich]

You intuition is right. Despite the demand for Plaubel Makina accessories being quite niche, there is one guy selling custom made 3D-printed screw-in Makina 67 diopters on a Chinese classified app for ￥179 ($25) each. This guy also makes a myriad of other interesting gadgets like this dipoter/double cold shoe adapter for the Voigtlander Bessa II/Vito III, or this 2-stop exposure compensation (utilizing a ND mask) arm for colored filters to be added to his hood/filter adapter/cold shoe/quick release combo grip for the Leica Minilux.

There is a big ecosystem going on in China. Quite a hassle to get one if you're not there though.

 

[Alpsman]

Is there an optician among the forums?
Can you use the lens of one of those cheap reading glasses?

The brass threaded ring can be made on a small lathe. But the lens?
I was already thinking about cutting out a round lens from those cheap reading glasses with plastic lenses and gluing it into a homemade ring.

I also have the problem that my environment is becoming increasingly blurry :-(

 

[mani]

You intuition is right. Despite the demand for Plaubel Makina accessories being quite niche, there is one guy selling custom made 3D-printed screw-in Makina 67 diopters on a Chinese classified app for ￥179 ($25) each. This guy also makes a myriad of other interesting gadgets like this dipoter/double cold shoe adapter for the Voigtlander Bessa II/Vito III, or this 2-stop exposure compensation (utilizing a ND mask) arm for colored filters to be added to his hood/filter adapter/cold shoe/quick release combo grip for the Leica Minilux.

There is a big ecosystem going on in China. Quite a hassle to get one if you're not there though.

Wow that is mind-blowing. The resourcefulness is beyond my complacent and spoiled Western comprehension. I've thought about projects like this a few times, but I almost always fall at the first hurdle: in this case, where would I get the diopter lenses?

In any case, there's no clue (even on a translated site) about how to order or pay for this object - so if anyone knows how to export them, there's a few buyers out there (I know from having contacted a few potential sellers).

Is there an optician among the forums?
Can you use the lens of one of those cheap reading glasses?

The brass threaded ring can be made on a small lathe. But the lens?
I was already thinking about cutting out a round lens from those cheap reading glasses with plastic lenses and gluing it into a homemade ring.

I watched a video on YouTube of someone reshaping some cheap sunglass-lenses to fit their Prada frames: they used a grinder to shape the glass. What struck me straight away, was that the glass was much thicker than would be suitable for a diopter, and looking at some old cheap reading glasses I have, they seem to have the same problem.

 

[mani]

So at the weekend I was watching some more Makina 67 YouTube videos (the usual thing to do, when you have a new camera and the weather is unrelentingly dark, cold, rain-mixed-with-snow), and saw that the body in this video was equipped with a diopter adapter, which switched the thread from the Makina (non-standard) size, to the very common Nikon diopter thread. Great! Problem solved at last!

I see there's even another viewer who has asked where one can buy this adapter. 👀 I eagerly unfold the responses!

Naturally the owner of the camera doesn't know where to buy this adapter. And exhaustive googling turns up nothing whatsoever.
This persistent feeling that the Internet is both amazing and disappointing at the same time.

I've begun investigating if 3D printing locally is a way around this problem. So far the only answers I've got, is that threads are not good candidates for current 3D-printing techniques. But apparently some people are making it work, somewhere out there, where Western buyers cannot reach...