[GARYNH]

June 19, 2008 at 1:20 pm

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

[GARYNH]

June 18, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Nice image – good balance and well composed.
If you want me to be extra picky then …..
There seem to be some sharpening artifacts around the light house – hard to tell at this size.
The grass in the mid-left, it just touches the horizon, causes clashes, would be better to shot from lower/higher to seperate the elements.
Seems it was very windy – so maybe a slower shutter to give more movement to the flowers, or faster to freeze them…

Having said all that I would be more than happy to have taken this photo and definatly could not have done better on the day.

gary H

[GARYNH]

June 18, 2008 at 12:30 pm

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 D2H

And 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!

[GARYNH]

June 18, 2008 at 10:00 am

I will start a new thread to describe the low-fi lens build..

Gary H

[GARYNH]

June 12, 2008 at 1:18 pm

I now have all the bits I need to build the lens. So I will do this at the w/e.
Life work and play have sort of got in the way – and I thought I was going to be able to grab a damaged nikon lens to base it all on… but back to plan “D” and use of a convertor…. Will post it all up at either the w/e or on Monday… honest!
Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 23, 2008 at 6:51 pm

I have gathered together the parts I need to make another “low tech” lens. If anyone is interested I will post up pics of the build process…..
In either case I will post images from the resultant lens here sometime next week.

Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 17, 2008 at 5:50 pm

Thanks for that Jon- nasty looking beasties! I assume that the great diving beatles are the things I have also seen in the pond.. About 1 – 1.5 inches across, seem to swim with the aid of two oar like apendages?

So I assume that if the bettles are still in there then we can excpect a lot more of the larvae….

GH

[GARYNH]

May 13, 2008 at 9:59 am

Had a quick look last night for the lens – cant find it.
So I have ordered up a new adapter and when that arrives I will build a new version. I will take pics of the process and post them up here.
It was easy to do, but I learned a few things while building the first version that i will try out in this one….

So “Watch this space”..

Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 12, 2008 at 8:21 pm

Im in between jobs & houses etc at the mo.. so will have to trawl through the pile of boxes, but I would like to try it out againanyway – so will dig it out and post a pic.

Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 12, 2008 at 12:14 pm

I made myself a lens for my D1h… Got an M42 to nikon mount from e-bay for £6.25 and an old broken folder, took the bellows and lens off the folder and hot glued to the mount – home made tilt/shift. I will see if I can dig out some of the images from the backup drives. It was interesting, leaked light everywhere, was very unpredictable…. IE fun.

Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 12, 2008 at 9:07 am

Martin, I had another look this morning on a calibrated monitor – as suspected the laptop screen is not good for looking at these images.
You are right on the sharpening, just right, nice range of tones in No.2. Really prefer the B&W version, very atmospheric.
Care to share your sharpening actions? I use LAB mode as well.. but I havnt been able to develop an action that will cover all or indeed most images in any satisfactory way.

Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 11, 2008 at 9:05 am

I think JB7 was right – the only issue with the origonal were the few sections of blown out sky. A slight rework of that one might be nice.
Never the less both are really nice images.

Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 10, 2008 at 9:07 pm

Alan, think you are right about the noise induced by the HDr process… I will try and run the images through the process again next week. (Im away from home at the mo so no access to the image files).

Well thanks everyone for the feed back – guess it is much like my old school reports “OK but could do better!”

Feel free to have a look at the others in my forum gallery and CC always welcome.

Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 10, 2008 at 9:03 pm

As I said Im viewing this on a dodgy laptop, the screen is really to contrasty and the DR is really bad……
I will view again on a better monitor later on.

Gary H

[GARYNH]

May 10, 2008 at 8:38 pm

There are several reasons (excusses?)
1) The shots were hand held – so didnt match very well
2) Something nasty happened in the re-size/upload to the forum….

I will try and include a better version.