Saturday, July 9, 2011

Seeing Blue

Blue -- NEX-5 & Schneider-Kreuznach 75mm f4 Enlarging Lens. Click for larger.

Removed this enlarging lens from its Yashica 50mm f1.9 lens barrel, and made it part of the focus helicoid system I made.  Schneider enlarging lenses are some of the sharpest lenses I have used.  They are still very cheap right now and they do work perfectly with the NEX system,  even with 50mm focal length, they can focus to infinity with a thin focusing helicoid.

The 49mm, 52mm and 55mm reversing ring for NEX have arrived.  These are made of aluminum but fit the NEX E-mount perfectly with no play at all.  I am planing to replace the c-mount adapter I used for my helicoid with one of these reversing rings.  The reason is that the opening of the c-mount adapter is very small and thus for some long lenses, you can actually see vignetting.  Of cause, you can  use these rings to mount lenses in reverse to give you macro capabilities with very high magnifications.

4 comments:

  1. My solution was to open up the hole on the C mount adapter on the lathe. It was simple operation and the size is not critical. I just made it as large as possible. On the lens side of the helicoid. I used a high quality B&W 52-62mm step-up ring. I machined a large aluminum washer to slip into the 62mm side of the ring. The hole in the washer is ~39mm and is permanently epoxied to the ring. The enlarging lenses are attached with the standard 39mm lens nut. I haven;t tried any 75mm lens yet.

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  2. Love the photo, but find the left side a little empty? Maybe too many distracting elements on the right? Sorry for all the questions and inquiries, but would be great to view some camera porn to see some of the lenses, adapters, rings, etc .... also if you have any recommended sellers either via eBay or some other source, that would be great! Mahalo, Thomas

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  3. @Paul: I envy you that you have a lathe! I do not have any kind of tools that can do this. Fortunately, the reversing rings are like $11 including shipping, so it's no too bad. You have got a good system, but I only have one focusing helicoid and all the lenses must fit it!

    Thanks for the idea though.

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  4. @Thomas: Yes I agree with you, but the right side is a brick wall past the hanging flower. I really should have crop it square. I think it looks better in square format.

    As for gears, most of my stuff come from visiting local photo shows. I really don't have anything exotic to show, though.

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