Godfrey
somewhat colored
Good stuff, and a nice start! That's a cute portrait! 
Yes, the Instant Magny 35 setup is a bit clumsy to carry around and use. The results are very nice, however.
I'm thinking: Hmm, with a bit of hacking around, I could make an Instax Square back for my Hasselblad out of the processing unit by cannibalizing my now "mostly useless" Polaroid back for the back mounting plate and latch mechanism ... Hmm hmm hmm. Wouldn't have to deal with the reversal at all, and it would actually be handy and easy to carry around. And ... I have 38/4.5, 50/4, 80/2.8, 129/4 Macro, and 150/4 lenses. And the film would be ISO 800, not ISO 100 due to the light losses. Hmm again. :angel:
onwards!
G
Yes, the Instant Magny 35 setup is a bit clumsy to carry around and use. The results are very nice, however.
I'm thinking: Hmm, with a bit of hacking around, I could make an Instax Square back for my Hasselblad out of the processing unit by cannibalizing my now "mostly useless" Polaroid back for the back mounting plate and latch mechanism ... Hmm hmm hmm. Wouldn't have to deal with the reversal at all, and it would actually be handy and easy to carry around. And ... I have 38/4.5, 50/4, 80/2.8, 129/4 Macro, and 150/4 lenses. And the film would be ISO 800, not ISO 100 due to the light losses. Hmm again. :angel:
onwards!
G
zuiko85
Veteran
Thanks Godfrey and Taemo for sharing your experience with this unit. Looks like it does a decent job.
I'm curious though about the camera back. Are they regular interchangeable backs adapted to the Instax holder, or are they made up by the creators of the unit. If regular backs it looks like production would be very limited by what is available on the used market or even worse, cannibalize used cameras.
I'm curious though about the camera back. Are they regular interchangeable backs adapted to the Instax holder, or are they made up by the creators of the unit. If regular backs it looks like production would be very limited by what is available on the used market or even worse, cannibalize used cameras.
zuiko85
Veteran
Just looked at the original KS campaign. This NINM Lab does not seen like the usual flakey KS creator. They actually shipped on time. They responded immediately to a backer problem.
After backing 4 KS campaigns, with 2 of them total disasters and the other two only so-so, I've sworn off ever backing another. But I might change my mind if this creator runs another campaign for something I'd be interested in.
After backing 4 KS campaigns, with 2 of them total disasters and the other two only so-so, I've sworn off ever backing another. But I might change my mind if this creator runs another campaign for something I'd be interested in.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
NINM is a quality outfit. I've pledged on a couple of their Kickstarters and they've produced excellent products every time.
The Instant Magny 35, if you're interested in one, can be pre-ordered still even though the Kickstarter is long over. The button on the Kickstarter page takes you to Indiegogo where you can place an order. They're still working through orders from the Kickstarter so it will be Feb to March before they can fulfill the order.
I tell, I'm really pleased with this device. The build quality is excellent, the performance is really very good (assuming a good optical match to the lens). The back for the Leica M fit precisely and is very sturdy.* The processing unit, whether it's a 'sub from Fuji' piece or not, is very well engineered. The imaging output is outstanding. Although I've been messing around with testing and haven't had time to do quality scans yet, some of my test prints are really really nice.
G
* No, it's not a modified original back. They make the backs from scratch for each camera line that they support.
Abbazz
6x9 and be there!
If you are interested in Instax backs, check this: http://mercurycamera.com/backs/mercury-instax-backs/
They are not cheap but they come in a few useful flavors: Graflok 45, Graflok 23 and "Universal Body".
If I hadn't already got my Maminstax, I would certainly take the plunge...
Cheers!
Abbazz
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Interesting, but Instax Square is just a few mm larger than Hasselblad format and would be a near perfect fit. Those are way too expensive ... I think I can cobble a Hasselblad back out of one of these Instant Magny 35 gizmos and my old Polaroid back for under $250. And do it in less than a week, once I have a second Instant Magny 35.
G
G
Godfrey
somewhat colored
In the class of "Thoroughly Impractical But Still Amusing Things To Do With An Instant Magny 35/Leica M", I set up this entertaining beast:
It's an old Sigma 600mm f/8 cat in Nikon mount that I bought some years back for less than $100. Mostly useless, but too cheap to waste time selling, I thought I'd play with doing extreme telephoto with the Instant Magny 35.
I set it up on the tripod and fitted the Leica CL to it to zero in the focus and find the correct exposure, then carefully removed the CL from it and fitted the M4-2 and Instant Magny 35. I made an exposure at 1/125 second (lens opening is of course a fixed f/8):
Notice that the Sigma 600 vignettes when mounted on the Leica M lens mount. This is because of the relatively small diameter of the mount flange ... It doesn't vignette on a Nikon F.
To show the scale of the magnification this achieves, I made the same photo with the M4-2 and Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Limited, same exposure settings:
Mostly silly and time consuming, but heck: It keeps me off the streets.
enjoy!
G
It's an old Sigma 600mm f/8 cat in Nikon mount that I bought some years back for less than $100. Mostly useless, but too cheap to waste time selling, I thought I'd play with doing extreme telephoto with the Instant Magny 35.
I set it up on the tripod and fitted the Leica CL to it to zero in the focus and find the correct exposure, then carefully removed the CL from it and fitted the M4-2 and Instant Magny 35. I made an exposure at 1/125 second (lens opening is of course a fixed f/8):
Notice that the Sigma 600 vignettes when mounted on the Leica M lens mount. This is because of the relatively small diameter of the mount flange ... It doesn't vignette on a Nikon F.
To show the scale of the magnification this achieves, I made the same photo with the M4-2 and Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Limited, same exposure settings:
Mostly silly and time consuming, but heck: It keeps me off the streets.
enjoy!
G
B-9
Devin Bro
Star Trails next! Lol
I can see your having fun with that!
I can see your having fun with that!
JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
Godrey, how easy was it to remove the back of your Nikon? Or do you use the Magny with the back hinged open? Are we certain the other "compatible" camera models have backs whose hinges can be removed easily by the user?
~Joe
~Joe
taemo
eat sleep shoot
finally had some more time for shooting.
as expected the CV15mm severely vignettes on this back (covers only 30% of the instax)
the 35mm summaron works wide open but vignette once stopped down
this one at f/8
wide open
don't know if my M3 shutter speed is off but seems like most images I've taken with it are under-exposed at slower speed (might be due for CLA) or I should maybe rate at iso 50 instead
50 cron wide open
as expected the CV15mm severely vignettes on this back (covers only 30% of the instax)
the 35mm summaron works wide open but vignette once stopped down
this one at f/8
wide open
don't know if my M3 shutter speed is off but seems like most images I've taken with it are under-exposed at slower speed (might be due for CLA) or I should maybe rate at iso 50 instead
50 cron wide open
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Sorry, I missed your comment at the end of January.
Mine is for the Leica M, but the same applies to the Nikon FM and other compatible camera models. The pressure plate/film back on these cameras is designed for easy removal in order to fit a bulk film magazine (an option that only a few people ever used, of course). Taking the back off is a matter of two seconds ... just slide the locking pin out of the way and the back comes off.
The Instant Magny 35 replaces the film back with its 'enlarging section' lens set, to which you fit the conical tube and the Instax Square film processing unit.
Any camera for which it can be used will be pretty much the same story.
G
Godfrey
somewhat colored
And now the wacky fun begins...
The makers were able to supply me with a spare film processing unit. And I have a Hasselblad/Polaroid back, and a Hasselblad 500CM. Some cutting and milling and gluing will happen, and I'll have an Instax SQ Hasselblad back out of this.
So much fun... !!!
G
The makers were able to supply me with a spare film processing unit. And I have a Hasselblad/Polaroid back, and a Hasselblad 500CM. Some cutting and milling and gluing will happen, and I'll have an Instax SQ Hasselblad back out of this.
So much fun... !!!
G
Hogarth Ferguson
Well-known
And now the wacky fun begins...
The makers were able to supply me with a spare film processing unit. And I have a Hasselblad/Polaroid back, and a Hasselblad 500CM. Some cutting and milling and gluing will happen, and I'll have an Instax SQ Hasselblad back out of this.
So much fun... !!!
G
Very interesting, I have a polaroid back on my desk and a magny film ejector arriving in the mail tomorrow. So, hopefully we both are able to make it work out.
I think there is going to be a lot of plastic removed to get the film plane moved up.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Indeed there is. I don't know yet whether it's possible to take enough material off to get the proper depth without radical surgery, but one way or another it will be made to work.
G
Hogarth Ferguson
Well-known
I'm looking forward to getting my hands on mine as well as seeing how you're able to work it out. My main goal is to have the film eject out the top.Indeed there is. I don't know yet whether it's possible to take enough material off to get the proper depth without radical surgery, but one way or another it will be made to work.
G
Godfrey
somewhat colored
... Instant Magny 35 Lens Experiments ...
... Instant Magny 35 Lens Experiments ...
I've spent some time playing with the Instant Magny 35 and the Instax SQ processing unit with the notion of adaptation to the Hasselblad. I've come to the conclusion that it really isn't particularly easy to adapt it without very radical surgery and alterations in how the processing unit works ... the film plane in the processing unit is some 10-11 mm behind the dark slide (itself 7 to 8 mm deep into the unit), and the dark slide controls the power on/off in the processing unit as well.
To modify it to work, I'll need to consider rejiggering the power control switch as well as completely cutting away most of the body of the processing unit, then adapting the dark slide and back mount from the Hasselblad-Polaroid back much deeper into the processing unit than I initially thought might be necessary.
I haven't given up on the idea but it's going to take more effort and time than I have for the moment, so it's back on the back burner.
Meanwhile, I played with a few different lenses as I relearned how to make photographs with the Instant Magny 35 fitted to my Leica M4-2. The behavior of the imaging varies quite a lot from lens to lens due to the optical match between the lens and the IM35's optical coupling. The size and position of a specific lens' exit pupil is the key thing ... SLR lenses (R lenses fitted on the R Adapter M to the M4-2), wide lenses which are inverse-telephoto designs, and longer lenses that naturally have a more forward exit pupil perform better than may typical RF lenses. Some examples...
The Voigtländer HyperWide 10mm f/5.6 works a treat on the M and CL digital cameras, but you can see that it's not the greatest optical match to the IM35 with lots of corner/edge darkening.
However, the usable portion of the frame is significant and you can make some lovely photographs with it. The extremely wide FoV is always fun, even cropped to square.
I made that exposure a few weeks back and then promptly forgot that the IM35 absorbs four stops of light, not two. Having fitted the Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 I made these two exposures but they're two stops under... Doh!
The second of them had enough meat in it to stand a bit of post processing and come up with an interesting (if noisy) portrait with a graphic look to it.
I find the texture in it fairly pleasing but I'd have preferred a properly exposed original...
So I then fitted a flash unit and fired off a couple of tests adding one then two stops to re-discover that the total correction was four stops.
Essentially, set your light meter to ISO 50 and forget it is what that means, given the Instax SQ film's ISO 800. A flash for indoor shooting becomes pretty essential due to reciprocity factors with that low and effective ISO and a good portrait of my partner resulted:
The Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Special used in these last three frames is essentially an SLR lens optically built into a Leica LTM lens mount. It provides very even illumination across the field of view and is a good match to the Instant Magny 35's optical system. I was interested to see how it compared to the Color Skopar 50mm and 28mm lenses, so I picked a standard still life target and took an exposure with each of them, using ambient light and a small tripod for the extended exposure times.
Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Special:
Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5:
Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5:
These show that the very classic optical formulae of the Color-Skopar lenses that give them their extremely compact form factor simply puts the small exit pupil too close to the optical pipe in the IM35 and the illumination drops off very quickly past a small central area. However, you can have fun with that if you want to be creative and use it to aid in your framing and composition.
With the Color-Skopar 28:
With the Color Skopar 50:
I have to say: the IM35 on a Leica M is probably the most difficult combination to work with due to the RF lenses AND the lack of TTL viewing for focus and framing. If I had a Nikon FM floating around to play with, I'd have done better with that and some Nikkor lenses. Or if Nisnas made one for the Leica R 6.2...
Made a while back with the Super-Elmar-R 15mm f/3.5 adapted to the Leica M mount:
But what the heck? It's all for fun anyway, right?
Oh yes: I want to point out that while these photos were all scanned and horizontally flipped (except the last) to achieve proper left to right orientation, and aside from the heavily processed portrait from the poorly exposed frame, they're all pretty much exactly as they came out of the camera. You can get quite nice results with this setup right out of the camera if you hit the exposure correctly!
enjoy!
G
... Instant Magny 35 Lens Experiments ...
I've spent some time playing with the Instant Magny 35 and the Instax SQ processing unit with the notion of adaptation to the Hasselblad. I've come to the conclusion that it really isn't particularly easy to adapt it without very radical surgery and alterations in how the processing unit works ... the film plane in the processing unit is some 10-11 mm behind the dark slide (itself 7 to 8 mm deep into the unit), and the dark slide controls the power on/off in the processing unit as well.
To modify it to work, I'll need to consider rejiggering the power control switch as well as completely cutting away most of the body of the processing unit, then adapting the dark slide and back mount from the Hasselblad-Polaroid back much deeper into the processing unit than I initially thought might be necessary.
I haven't given up on the idea but it's going to take more effort and time than I have for the moment, so it's back on the back burner.
Meanwhile, I played with a few different lenses as I relearned how to make photographs with the Instant Magny 35 fitted to my Leica M4-2. The behavior of the imaging varies quite a lot from lens to lens due to the optical match between the lens and the IM35's optical coupling. The size and position of a specific lens' exit pupil is the key thing ... SLR lenses (R lenses fitted on the R Adapter M to the M4-2), wide lenses which are inverse-telephoto designs, and longer lenses that naturally have a more forward exit pupil perform better than may typical RF lenses. Some examples...
The Voigtländer HyperWide 10mm f/5.6 works a treat on the M and CL digital cameras, but you can see that it's not the greatest optical match to the IM35 with lots of corner/edge darkening.
However, the usable portion of the frame is significant and you can make some lovely photographs with it. The extremely wide FoV is always fun, even cropped to square.
I made that exposure a few weeks back and then promptly forgot that the IM35 absorbs four stops of light, not two. Having fitted the Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 I made these two exposures but they're two stops under... Doh!
The second of them had enough meat in it to stand a bit of post processing and come up with an interesting (if noisy) portrait with a graphic look to it.
I find the texture in it fairly pleasing but I'd have preferred a properly exposed original...
So I then fitted a flash unit and fired off a couple of tests adding one then two stops to re-discover that the total correction was four stops.
Essentially, set your light meter to ISO 50 and forget it is what that means, given the Instax SQ film's ISO 800. A flash for indoor shooting becomes pretty essential due to reciprocity factors with that low and effective ISO and a good portrait of my partner resulted:
The Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Special used in these last three frames is essentially an SLR lens optically built into a Leica LTM lens mount. It provides very even illumination across the field of view and is a good match to the Instant Magny 35's optical system. I was interested to see how it compared to the Color Skopar 50mm and 28mm lenses, so I picked a standard still life target and took an exposure with each of them, using ambient light and a small tripod for the extended exposure times.
Pentax-L 43mm f/1.9 Special:
Color-Skopar 28mm f/3.5:
Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5:
These show that the very classic optical formulae of the Color-Skopar lenses that give them their extremely compact form factor simply puts the small exit pupil too close to the optical pipe in the IM35 and the illumination drops off very quickly past a small central area. However, you can have fun with that if you want to be creative and use it to aid in your framing and composition.
With the Color-Skopar 28:
With the Color Skopar 50:
I have to say: the IM35 on a Leica M is probably the most difficult combination to work with due to the RF lenses AND the lack of TTL viewing for focus and framing. If I had a Nikon FM floating around to play with, I'd have done better with that and some Nikkor lenses. Or if Nisnas made one for the Leica R 6.2...
Made a while back with the Super-Elmar-R 15mm f/3.5 adapted to the Leica M mount:
But what the heck? It's all for fun anyway, right?
Oh yes: I want to point out that while these photos were all scanned and horizontally flipped (except the last) to achieve proper left to right orientation, and aside from the heavily processed portrait from the poorly exposed frame, they're all pretty much exactly as they came out of the camera. You can get quite nice results with this setup right out of the camera if you hit the exposure correctly!
enjoy!
G
donkee
Established
Interesting, I like the idea of having one of my spare OMs setup to shoot instant proofs and giveaway pics on the spot.....