lenses across formats

[Phil_F_NM]

Since I'm a firm believer that a lens is a lens and it doesn't care where it's projecting light, I love to experiment with the coverage circle of my 35mm lenses.

This started back in 2006 when I shot with a Bronica S2A daily and my 135mm Nikkor gave up the ghost. While attempting to fix it, I got a wild idea and started experimenting...

It turns out that the long-focus Leica M lenses make fantastic 6x6 lenses.
I created an adapter for my 135mm Hektor's visoflex optical unit and spaced it out for infinity focus. While it looked really funny on the front of the Bronica, it was light years better than the Nikkor 135 that the Bronica came with.

Since then I've shot a few different medium format cameras & restored/used a few 4x5 Graphics.
Lately, I use my 4x5 for testing image circles of lenses far more often than exposing film.

Yesterday I found that the Canon 35mm f/2 will cover 6x6 with minimal corner vignetting at infinity and more exciting, the ZM 21mm f/2.8 will do the same.

Now the only issue is finding a user/beater 6x6 folder like my old Perkeo and grafting an adapter to take the M lens onto it.

Are any of you all guilty of "shoehorning" one lens onto another format just because you can?

My next project is a homebrewed "X-Pan" made from a stereo camera with the center baffle and lenses removed with a wide angle medium format lens in-shutter grafted onto the front.

Phil Forrest

 

[pagpow]

So... as long as you mentioned both Leica long focus and "X-Pan" in the same sentence, ever since I learned that many of the Leica longs were log-focus and not telephoto constructions, I have dreamt of hacking a 135 onto an XPan. This would allow capturing an area about one half the area captured w the 90. Simplifying to just infinity focus shouldn't be much of a problem for many applications and should be possible with simple extension tubes. Anybody share the dream? or implement it?

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I've adapter an Industar-69 for an M8, and it is close for coverage. Some internal filing of the mount was required to acheive infinity. The I-69 is made for a half-frame camera. It uses a 39mm thread mount, but the flange distance is a few millimeters different from LTM.

Mostly, I've adapted lenses across mounts, like an M42 mount Tessar made into LTM using an I-61 focus mount.

I've got some old Wollensak Raptar lenses in Fastax mount that I want to try on u4/3rds.

I hope you post the Home-Made XPAN on the forum.

 

[Gazzah]

I went the other way and took the bellows and lens of a rusty folder (cant remember which one) anf fitted it to my nikon DSLR, my own tilt and shift lens system. It was better than I expected and I still use it often.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

You could start with a Holga WPC (Wide Pinhole Camera). It might be less expensive.
It is a 6x12 format.

I recently bought a Great Wall DP-2. It is a 6x6 SLR with interchangeable lens, the mount is 39mm LTM. No other lenses were produced for this camera but I have a metal body cap in LTM drilled out and adapted to take pinholes.

I already did the homebrewed 6x12 and even a 6x14.
The 6x12 was made using a Kodak 2C Autographic vest pocket folder. I hacked it up and stuck a Graflex 90mm f/6.8 WA lens on the front standard and got a machine that made these:

6x12 was amazing but also really expensive. Keeping the film flat in the camera is difficult with a film gate that large. Scanning is difficult, optical printing was next to impossible.
I'm going to do the homebrew "X-Pan" thing because the camera size will be so much smaller. Using the 35mm stereo camera, all the film transport is there, everything is ready to go.
Including my dremel tool.
I just need to find the right donor camera.
Phil Forrest

 

[ethics_gradient]

My next project is a homebrewed "X-Pan" made from a stereo camera with the center baffle and lenses removed with a wide angle medium format lens in-shutter grafted onto the front.

Phil Forrest

I got the same idea from the esteemable Dean Jones' Obsession camera. He found that the Bronica 40mm f/4 (a 645 lens) throws an image circle adequate to cover 24x72mm. I lack his metalworking skills so I went another route with the body construction and focusing, which didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped (there's a light leak somewhere that was driving me nuts). I've got some ideas for an improved, redesigned version, but haven't taken the time to sit down and work on the camera in a few months. (I've been bitten by the large format bug and haven't been doing as much experimenting with 35mm as I used to.) Still, would like to return to the project sometime in the next month or two, it was fun, I like shooting with something that I made myself, and some of the early results were tantalizing.

Basically:

-Took apart a Bronca 40mm f/4, removed lens cells and set aside.
-Took apart an old Ventura 69 (apparently an Agfa rebadged for the US market) folder, saving the bellows and #0 shutter. May use the body for a 6x9 pinhole project later, can't find where I put the rollers though :-\
-Took apart the Nimslo stero camera and cut the septums away, leaving a 24x72mm frame.
-Got an old M42 macro bellows, removed the rear standard, chopped the rail, and enlarged the front standard so the front of the Ventura bellows would fit in it flush. Made a custom lens board (very crudely) from a piece of sheet aluminium I got at a hardware store.
-Sunk a hole in the end of the macro bellows, and bought an L-bracket at the hardware store to attach it to the camera body.
-Epoxied the lens board to the front standard.
-Fitted the Bronica lens cells into the #0 shutter from the Nimslo, put that on the front standard, then attached bellows to rear of the shutter. Gaffer's tape used to seal the bellows to the Nimslo body (suspect this may be the weak link causing the light leak somewhere, not sure though).
-Used the focusing screen from my 5D as groundglass to find infinity focus, 6', and 18", marked on rail.
-This came later: attached an accessory wideangle lens masked off to use as finder with some gaffers tape, made a custom mount for it out of some modeling clay (yes, seriously).

On the plus side, I get the ability to focus close (you can see a few examples in the Flickr set), although I sacrificed a lot of robust-ness going with the macro bellows thing, rather than just using hyperfocal calculations.





Here's the Flickr Set, with some construction pictures and scans of tests

 

[Ezzie]

Nice post Ethics. Reminded me of a neat trick for lens collimation - which is on topic I guess? I´ve used this method, but not seen the proof of the pudding just yet as I´ve not yet processed the first film roll yet. Though focusing through the ground glass seemed to render sharp imagery.

Here´s the link: http://elekm.net/zeiss-ikon/repair/collimate/

In my case I was building a 4+5 with at Graflok back with ground glass. This meant I could just make a cross on the ground side of the glass. Here´s the final test picture:

 

[Roberto V.]

Phil, do you happen to have pictures taken with the 135mm Hektor on the Bronica?

Thanks
Rob V.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

Rob,
If I do, they are on an external drive. I can look for them in the next day or two. I still have the Hektor mount that I made but no Bronica camera nor Hektor lens to use it.

Phil Forrest

 

[Roberto V.]

Rob,
If I do, they are on an external drive. I can look for them in the next day or two. I still have the Hektor mount that I made but no Bronica camera nor Hektor lens to use it.

Phil Forrest

Nice, I'd love to see what that lens can do in MF.

 

[johannielscom]

Posted this before:

A Mamiya-Sekor 65/2.8 designed for the C-series cameras, onto a Copal 0 board and used on a Horseman 970 6x9 camera. Shot on Tmax 400.



I feel the corners actually add to the sense of surrealism that I like in my pictures.