Making the Leitz Varob 5cm f3.5 Focus to Infinity

Someone e-mail me about using the Leitz Varob 5cm f3.5 enlarging lens on the NEX-5, so I thought it might be a good idea to take some pictures of how I make it work on the NEX-5.  Simple, really, but I do need a thin focus helicoid.  I use a cheap Chinese made 17-32mm with M42 mount on the camera side, and a 52mm thread on the lens side.

If you want to know more about the lens, I wrote a bit about it here.
If you want to know more about the 17-32mm focusing helicoid, I wrote about it here.

First thing I did, was to cut the lens barrel closer to the rear element.  This ensures that the rear element is as close to the camera as possible.  Picture below shows the cut as well as the mounted filter ring:

Len Barrel cut close to the rear element.  Click for larger.

The lens is then mounted and glued onto a name ring of some generic lens which has the perfect opening.  This name ring also screws onto the 52mm filter ring:

Adding spacing rings. I need to add a couple of filter rings to make focus close to infinity, instead of way past infinity. Click for larger size.

Ready to be used with the 17-31mm helicoid. Click for larger size.

Screw the lens onto the focusing helicoid, and voila!  We are ready to take pictures!

Lens on helicoid. Click for larger size.

Lens on camera. Click for larger size.