I have wanted to shoot this lens since 2007

[Phil_F_NM]

Back in late 2006 I got a Kodak Autographic 2C and converted it to a wide-field 120 shooter with a Graflex Optar 90mm f/6.8 lens.
I used that camera to shoot my NYC skyline from Hoboken in the frigid early months of 2007.

Being the photographic packrat that I am, I kept the meniscus lens from the Kodak 2C and have only shot a few photos with it. Those were some paper negative images I made using my Crown Graphic. I don't think I ever scanned them but have always wanted to shoot that lens on something else.

So, going through my stuff as I move into my new place in Philly, I "found" the Kodak meniscus lens in one of my boxes of photo junk.

Recently a friend had given me a bunch of Minolta gear, most of which was just no good. One of the lenses was a Tokina 28-105mm push-pull zoom. I held both the meniscus lens and the modern Minolta lens in my hands and thought that the Minolta was just about the perfect length to create a focusing unit for the old Kodak.

I set to tearing the Minolta lens apart and after dismantling the whole thing, removing the glass and putting the barrel/helicoids back together, I had a focusing unit in which I could put the Kodak lens. Getting the Kodak lens in the end of the barrel was a pain. i ruined one crappy lens cap trying to create a lensboard and finally set the lens into a smaller ring and shimmed the thing into the barrel with electrical tape. Hey, it works.

The back end was taken apart as well since I can't stick a Minolta mount into a Nikon body. It just so happened that the Minolta flange was held on with three screws just the same as the Nikon flange so it was a 1:1 flange swap though the NIkon unit was far thinner so I had to use shorter screws.

Here it is in 95% finished form.

I just finished setting the infinity point of the lens. Out on my stoop, camera on the tripod aimed wide open at the top of the Liberty towers in center city, well over a mile away. This shot here is stopped down just to see what it can resolve with just a cursory glance through the viewfinder.

Then I stopped it down to one of the arbitrary numbers on the scale and took a shot up 9th St.

Then for the magic.
As it's a meniscus lens, the aperture selected greatly affects the focus point and the sharpness of the overall image.
This is from about 12ft away. A view of my kitchen window. Wide open aperture.

So far I'm very happy with it and can't wait to take some portraits as well as some cityscapes. This is just a great optic and it's going to be a blast to shoot with it on a sunny day.

Phil Forrest

 

[B-9]

Awesome hack! The results look great!

 

[Denverdad]

There are so many cheap old third-party (and/or broken) 35mm lenses out there that nobody wants and which can be had for little or nothing - what a great idea to rework one for a DIY focus mechanism. This is one of those "now why didn't I think of that?" ideas! 🙂

So tell me, was it difficult tearing into the lens barrel and removing all the guts?

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Phil,
This is such a GREAT idea! I've got a nice old 4x5 barrel lens that I'd like to use on a modern digital body for fun. Using an old useless zoom body is brilliant! Thanks.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

There are so many cheap old third-party (and/or broken) 35mm lenses out there that nobody wants and which can be had for little or nothing - what a great idea to rework one for a DIY focus mechanism. This is one of those "now why didn't I think of that?" ideas! 🙂

So tell me, was it difficult tearing into the lens barrel and removing all the guts?

Thanks!
Removing the glass was easy. The aperture mechanism was a little harder on that model zoom since it was elongated and fixed under a plate with countersunk machine screws that I couldn't see until I took the WHOLE thing down to its bits. I was probably too careful because I'm used to having to put these things back together so I could have been a little more ham-fisted and not cared which orientation the helicoid went back together. As it is, the lens barrel pushes and pulls as-original. It also turns as it camer from the factory. There was a bit of a confusing array and size of nylon bushings sitting on screws which provided limits to how much the lens traveled this way and that. Take heed, those of you using an old zoom for this kind of project. Make sure you separate them by size and make index marks on where they go when you get all the glass out.

This was a bit of a risk since at the back end of the lens there is a "cup" which is part of the inner helicoid which also held a group of lens elements. The hole in this cup is just barely enough to allow the lens to project on the full frame. I'm still thinking of widening it up a bit but I'll have to take the whole thing apart again or risk getting aluminum shavings in the helicoid which is absolutely not fun.

One hint: keep those old metal screw-in lens caps. They make great lensboards.

Phil,
This is such a GREAT idea! I've got a nice old 4x5 barrel lens that I'd like to use on a modern digital body for fun. Using an old useless zoom body is brilliant! Thanks.

Just make sure you have an exact measurement of the lens' registration from the back of the lens flange to the focal plane at infinity. With this example I fumbled around to find it for a while then got really close until I went outside for the actual test. Good thing about a zoom barrel is that you can focus beyond infinity (which is so far away, it's blurry! 😀 ) then find the true focal point at infinity with the camera and some trial/error shots. Once I found where it was, I took a circular piece of aluminum which was another part I had laying around, and cut it to allow fitting it over the lens barrel tightly then springing back. I used tape to set it where the true infinity point sits so i can rack the lens back and know that it's at infinity instead of hunting for it.

Also remember that with these old lenses you're getting something closer to a 110mm or longer lens as they were the normal on 6x9 and bigger cameras.
Even the meniscus out of a broken Brownie can shoot a cool photo. It's awesome to see how very little optical progress has been made since the patent date of such lenses. Mine was in a ball bearing shutter, patented in 1913 and the camera dated from probably before 1924. At the equivalent of f/8 this lens is 90% as good as the 150mm I have for my Mamiya 6!

Phil Forrest