Avotius
Some guy
Break out either the Mad Scientist or Heretical Prize of the Year out because I just did something really neat.
Yes as the title said, I mated the lens from my old brick to my Canon 20D. The result, digital photos from the old Cintar 50mm 3.5 lens! How cool is that. A very strange coming together of Rangefinder and DSLR.
Please dont stone me for this one!
Anyway what I did was remove the lens from the C3 and then the little brass colored ring which easily unscrews from the body, which I didnt find out of course until I had completely dismantled the body....naturally being a guy I didnt bother to go look for instructions or anything online to help me out with this, I just thought...dead camera, lens (with fungus), digital camera...why not....
Anyho back to the construction, I then took a canon lens cap and placed the brass ring in the middle of it and used the edge of a screw driver to mark out how big the brass part was then used a little jig saw and cut it out, then used a rounded file to file down the edges and then stuck the brass part into the cap from the back. It fit nice and tight but later I will epoxy it in there so it doesn't slip about and need to test for any light leaks. After that I just screwed the lens back onto the brass part but not all the way so I can focus the lens by rotating it in and out on the lens mount and now I can look through the viewfinder of my 20D and focus the lens. My only problem at the moment is that I can only take pictures very close, about .5 meters, but that will change fast because im in the process of cutting off a piece of the outer lens barrel that seems to be there just to stop the lens from screwing in too far, that way I will be able to lower the lens farther into the body (it wont hit the shutter) and be able to hopefully focus it out to infinity.
All together to get to the point where the lens was on the canon body cap and on the camera taking pictures: 30 minutes. I spent several days thinking about how I could do this (again without any instructions, who needs instructions...) but in the end it was a lot easier then I thought.
So in the end what do I have...a very capable platform, the Canon 20D, with the small compact fun of rangefinder lenses, together in a strange marriage of rangefinder and DSLR that is both compact and just plain cool.
More shots coming but what I got here is:
First shot: The Canon 20D and Argus Cintar 50mm 3.5 lens together.
Second shot: The lens removed showing the brass lens mount planted into a canon lens cap.
Third shot: Quick test shot of a cat to see if it worked. Aperture 3.5, distance about .6 meters, ISO 3200, 1/40 second (its night here right now)
Fourth shot: An early test shot of the lens after I cut out a piece of card paper to fit over the camera mount and cut a small hole for the lens to fit in, just wanted to see if it could be done.
After I get out and have some time to shoot the set up here some more ill post some more shots, whats up here now really is just quick snaps to see if it worked or not. Well, looks like it did! This is the first time I have ever "made my own lens" type thing, so this is pretty cool for me.
🙂
Yes as the title said, I mated the lens from my old brick to my Canon 20D. The result, digital photos from the old Cintar 50mm 3.5 lens! How cool is that. A very strange coming together of Rangefinder and DSLR.
Please dont stone me for this one!
Anyway what I did was remove the lens from the C3 and then the little brass colored ring which easily unscrews from the body, which I didnt find out of course until I had completely dismantled the body....naturally being a guy I didnt bother to go look for instructions or anything online to help me out with this, I just thought...dead camera, lens (with fungus), digital camera...why not....
Anyho back to the construction, I then took a canon lens cap and placed the brass ring in the middle of it and used the edge of a screw driver to mark out how big the brass part was then used a little jig saw and cut it out, then used a rounded file to file down the edges and then stuck the brass part into the cap from the back. It fit nice and tight but later I will epoxy it in there so it doesn't slip about and need to test for any light leaks. After that I just screwed the lens back onto the brass part but not all the way so I can focus the lens by rotating it in and out on the lens mount and now I can look through the viewfinder of my 20D and focus the lens. My only problem at the moment is that I can only take pictures very close, about .5 meters, but that will change fast because im in the process of cutting off a piece of the outer lens barrel that seems to be there just to stop the lens from screwing in too far, that way I will be able to lower the lens farther into the body (it wont hit the shutter) and be able to hopefully focus it out to infinity.
All together to get to the point where the lens was on the canon body cap and on the camera taking pictures: 30 minutes. I spent several days thinking about how I could do this (again without any instructions, who needs instructions...) but in the end it was a lot easier then I thought.
So in the end what do I have...a very capable platform, the Canon 20D, with the small compact fun of rangefinder lenses, together in a strange marriage of rangefinder and DSLR that is both compact and just plain cool.
More shots coming but what I got here is:
First shot: The Canon 20D and Argus Cintar 50mm 3.5 lens together.
Second shot: The lens removed showing the brass lens mount planted into a canon lens cap.
Third shot: Quick test shot of a cat to see if it worked. Aperture 3.5, distance about .6 meters, ISO 3200, 1/40 second (its night here right now)
Fourth shot: An early test shot of the lens after I cut out a piece of card paper to fit over the camera mount and cut a small hole for the lens to fit in, just wanted to see if it could be done.
After I get out and have some time to shoot the set up here some more ill post some more shots, whats up here now really is just quick snaps to see if it worked or not. Well, looks like it did! This is the first time I have ever "made my own lens" type thing, so this is pretty cool for me.
🙂
