Leica Lens Modifications

A

alex.wheatley

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I know this might be decried as vandalisation and there have been various "franken-leica" post over the years, but I want to share a few of the modifications I have made to my equipment to make them more usable to me, in the hope that other people might have some examples to share of their own.

Here is a 21mm Color Skopar f4 with the googles from a 35mm summaron to give rough framing for 21mm without a viewfinder (I had to make custom cam for this to focus correctly).

A collapsable lens hood for my 90mm tele-elmarit made from bits of other leica hoods.

A 35mm colour skopar modified to focus closer than manufacture (I have done this with quite a few other lenses including a pre-asph 35mm summilux which is probably a very unwise finial decision but means I get the shots I want so worth it in the end - plus the lens is no looker anyway)

Any other tinkerers with examples/inspirations to show?



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Cool. I think goggles on a 21mm that would allow the 35mm frame to cover 21mm FOV is an awesome idea. I wish Cosina would put that on their new COLOR-SKOPAR 21mm F3.5...
 
When I crunch the numbers I get that the goggle would give just the right FOV for a 25mm lens, within the 35mm frameline. Probably close enough for the 21 as well.

35/50 = 0.7

and

.7 x 35 = 24.5

So it should be ideal with the little 25mm CV lens!
 
Hi Rob, yes essentially the whole VF is about a 21mm so I use it without framelines - you can't see out side the the frame like you can with an external finder but you can focus and compose which is nice...
 
Haven't got around to modifying lenses yet but I did chop up a Canon 7 to fit a Leica M mount and cold shoe on it.

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The goggled 21mm is a cool idea - aux finders kind of suck (especially the 12mm finder with tape on it that I'm using). Too bad the Bessa R4s are kind of uncommon / expensive...
 
Love the M mount Canon I've always wanted to try and make an M mount Pen-F, was it a hard modification to achieve?

For the 35mm the mod is very easy you just need to move the stopper along the barrel, and then it will focus to 0.7m, the hard part is having the courage to drill the barrel!
 
wasn't trivial but was pretty straightforward I think. The only real headscratcher was how to clear the (much larger) diameter of the M mount bayonet - I had to cut the light baffling, modify the linkage for the slow speeds and move the opening curtain pulley. I did a thread on the build somewhere here...

I also bought a Pen with the intention of modifying it- if I recall I figured it would be very difficult to make M mount, can't remember exactly why (something about diameter and FFD, most likely). The camera is still dead and sitting in a drawer under my work bench lol.
 
Fantastic will hunt it down! Yes the mirror makes life tricky too for anything with a protruding rear element. If you do decide to have a go you will have to post a thread 🙂
 
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