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Low-fo lens – building my own.
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Following on from a discussion on low-fi digital cameras – I mentioned that I had built a low-fi lens for use on my D1H.
I have now built another one and will describe here the process.The bits that I used where :
Old pentacon 50mm M42 lens : cost unknown (has been lying around for years with broken focus ring)
M42 to Nikon adapter : cost £3.25 delivered, no need for the more expensive ones with optics in them.
Lens and Bellows from old folder: cost £1.50 from local junk shop. The one I got was from an old rusty brownie folding camera.
Sheet of plastic : cost 0 – was cut from an old bikkie box.The lens was dismantled to get the mount, by pure chance the pentacon had a screw in flange that used to hold the optics in place. I had intended to use glue to hold the card in place, but this served the purpose well.
I cut the plastic sheet to cover the back of the bellows. Then cut out a circle to fit the front end of the lens, I used a pen knife to do this.
In the first picture you can see the parts laid out on the work bench.
In the 2nd pic you have the lens mounted onto the sheet.It is best to mount the lens base with adapter onto the camera and mark the top of the mount, this will enable you to get the plastic sheet and therefore the bellows aligned correctly.
Continued in next post……
Once the plastic sheet is aligned and fixed to the old lens mount (either glued or in my case clamped) you can glue the bellows on to the sheet. I used hot melt glue as it is gap filling and quick to set.
On the lens I used there was a shutter release – I used the high tech method of an old wood screw to hold this in the open position.
After all the glue is set – simply mount the lens and try it out.
Focusing is simply a matter of push and pull, you can tilt and swing the lens to a large degree. Most folders are medium format, so the lens will cover an area many times larger than your sensor!.
Finally the lens mounted on my D2HAnd the first few pics –
Out the door of the workshop….
Workshop…I hopefully will get out on Friday and get some that will show the capabilities off a bit better then these.
Have fun!
Well done, you have done a lot of work on this project, hope the results are good. looking forward to seeing them.
Once I got all the bits together it takes about an hour to build the thing. This is my third version, and I will probably built a few more with all the bits I have lying around. I try something different each time, the “mistake” if any on this one was that the bellows are to far from the camera body, this limits the amount of tilt/shift before the image circle is interfered with….
After some initial testing Im a bit disapointed, mainly because the images are if anything to good….!!!
I will hopefully get out tomorrow, if the weather gets a bit better to try it out a bit more. Its very like using a lensbaby, only with more movement available and seems like a much better lens!I have a number of old lenses and have been talking to a repair shop about getting hold of damaged – unrepairable nikon lenses to harvest the mounts from, but part of using the M42-Nikon adapter means that I can reuse it on a number of projects.
Hopfully I will will be posting up some more sample images at the w/e.
Gary H
It’s like tying your own fly and catching a fish with it.
Making your own lens… I have yet to try it
while i really appreciate the effort you have put in ….. the images are just screaming camera phone. But i mean if this is mark 3 then you are improving all the time and soon you will hit that sweetspot. Id be interested in seeing some images with the lens tilted.
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