The [Fixed] Rangefinder Lens Craze

I have been taking out lenses from rangefinder cameras to be used on digital for a while now, but usually only on German made ones, because they are so much simpler.  I took apart a couple of Japanese ones, namely the Minolta Hi-Matic and a Yashica with a 45mm f1.7 lenses.  Both ended up failed attempts due to their very complicated construction.  But I have Matt and Ian to blame for all the rangefinder lenses they shared on their Flickr streams, and of course, they made everything look so easy.  So I started to experiment with the Japanese rangefinder cameras again.

Failed attempt - only the gut is left, but still usable on the helicoid.  This lens is from either the Hi-Matic S or Yashica Electro 35.  It's a 45mm f1.7 lens.

The very well regarded Zuiko 42mm f1.7 Lens vs the garden variety 40mm f1.7, that few other makers use (Canon, Minolta, etc).

Last week I got a few mostly broken rangefinders for my experimentation.  Some are just so beautifully made that I can't put myself through tearing them apart.  I will save those that are still working and only take apart those that aren't "perfect".

I am taking this slowly, and try to take the time to understand how they are put together, so that when I take them apart, I can still adjust the aperture/focus.  Many of these that I disassembled, have seized aperture rings.  I am not a patient person and sometimes I just wanted to take them out quickly and used excessive force when seemingly there are no way to remove certain parts of the lens.  These usually ended up as lenses with no aperture control, and being used on the focus helicoid.  I try to preserve as much as possible the built-in focus mechanism, but the side effect is that each one will need its own mount, which will add to the cost.  It also means no close focusing capabilities.

Some recent additions.

The reason I like these rangefinder lenses, is because they usually have pretty fast maximum apertures (f1.7, f2, etc) and they have short flange distance, which match up nicely with mirrorless cameras, especially the full frame A7 series.  Let's not forget the most important aspect of these gems, that they have very nice, sometimes unusual rendering characteristics not found in your kit lens or even the very expensive, well corrected fast primes.  These things are sometimes like drugs; once get hooked, it has to go through its course to recover, and sometimes you don't!

Yashican Color-Yashinon DX 45mm f1.7 on Sony A7.  Looks nice, no?

Empty Milkweed Pod - Nikkor-H 48mm f2 from Nikkorex

Yashinon 4.5cm f1.8 from Lynx-1000

Here is another rangefinder lens I removed from the Yashica Lynx-1000.  This time, I attempted to leave the original focus mechanism intact and made it into a native E-Mount.  This has the benefit of a nicer, more unified look than used on a focus helicoid.  The drawback is that minimum focus distance is at 0.8 meter, and the focusing mechanism is unintuitive and difficult to turn.  The focusing ring is very thin, but there is a little handle on the ring which you use to focus.  Instead of landing my fingers anywhere on the focusing ring, I have to find that tiny handle first each time I need to focus.  But, this is my first successful rangefinder lens conversion, and I am going to just keep it like this, for the time being.

Yashinon 4.5cm f1.8 on Sony A7.  Looks nice, no?

This lens is similar to the 45mm f1.8 from the Lynx-5000E, which my Flickr friend Matt tested, and claimed to be a very sharp lens, sharp to the edges, even on wide apertures.  You can check out the samples on his Flickr stream.  This one from Lynx-1000, however, is not very sharp at the edges, even stopped down significantly.  It does, however, have interesting swirly bokeh, and the centre of the frame is very sharp at f1.8.

In use, I find it less restricting than I thought, in terms of the minimum focus distance.  Sure, at times wished I could focus closer but one adjusts to it pretty quickly.  On the focus mechanism, I forego the little focus handle, and instead, just find the focusing ring and turn it instead.  It's workable if not cumbersome.

Swirly Bokeh - Yashinon 4.5cm f1.8 wide open & Sony A7

I like this lens as a walk around lens.  It's relatively small size matches the similarly small Sony A7 body, and they look pretty nice together, in my opinion.  The centre of the lens is very sharp, but if you like sharpness across the frame, this is probably not your kind of lens, and you may want to look at the 45mm f1.8 from the Lynx-5000E instead.  It's totally adequate for my use though, as I am more interested in how the lens renders the pictures, especially the bokeh.  There are plenty of sharp lenses, but interesting ones are few, and really interesting lenses that produce pleasing results are hard to find.

Greenwood Skating Rink - Yasinon 4.5cm f1.8 & Sony A7

This lens produces swirly bokeh when picture is taken wide open and the subject is focused at
minimum focus distance.  It's not so pronounced as the Biotar 75mm f1.5, or some C-Mount lenses with severely distorted edges like the Dallmeyer Speed 25mm f1.5. Surely, swirly background is not uncommon.  Many old lenses do this.  Some like this kind of aesthetics, I find it mildly interesting.  In the case of the Yashinon 4.5cm f1.8, this swirly background lends some uniqueness to the lens and sets apart from modern counterparts, which are usually well enough corrected that swirly bokeh does not happen.

Orange Wall -- Yashinon 4.5cm f1.8 & Sony A7

Fujinon 4.5cm f1.9 Rangefinder Lens

The Fuji 4.5cm f1.9 came with shutter blades jammed up inside the lens of a Fujica 35-EE rangefinder camera.  This camera is not known to have a reputation for reliability, probably due to the complex nature of its design.  This is one of the most complicated rangefinders I have disassembled, and removing the shutter blades were also a pain in the rear, but when it's all done, the results from this lens is well worth all the effort.

Fujinon 4.5cm f1.9 on a 58mm diameter focus helicoid

I opted not to use the build-in focus mechanism on this lens, and instead, use my newly acquired, though shoddy made focus helicoid with a 58mm opening.  The large diameter allows the lens to go inside the helicoid so that it's close enough to the sensor for the lens to focus to infinity.  The added bonus is that infinity focus does not need to be precise, as long as it can be be focused to infinity.  This is not true when using the built-in focus mechanism.  It must be exact, or either you can't focus to infinity, or it focuses pass infinity and causes its already long minimum focus distance to increase further.

When used with a 17-32mm focus helicoid, very close focusing is possible.  Click for larger.

Like many rangefinder cameras from the 60s, the lens was designed and made as a premium product, but the lens optical formula is relatively simple compared to today's lenses.  This may not be a bad thing, as fewer elements usually means more pronounced characters and better looking bokeh.  Highly corrected lenses of today produce pictures that look similar to each other.

Very sharp wide open.  Click on picture for a larger version.

The Fuji 4.5cm f1.9 produces very fine pictures.  It's very sharp in the middle of the frame wide open, and it has a very pleasing rendering characteristic; sharp but without the hint of harshness.  I like the bokeh too; nothing distracting or extreme.  When stopped down to around f11, sharpness shows itself across the whole frame.  I would say very good performance from a lens designed and made more than 50 years ago.

Adapting Refitted Rangefinder Lenses on the Sony A7

I have had quite a few Japanese rangefinder lenses that I took out of the cameras, but was never able to make them work.  Many of these are "fast" lenses, like the 45mm f1.9/2.0.  At the beginning, I didn't have enough experience removing the lenses and they pretty much all ended up having problems; shutter stayed shut, aperture not working, focusing mechanism could not be put back, etc. The most pressing problem is the very short flange distance, and a very large rear elements within the helicoid that interferes with the mount.

The short flange usually means the original focusing mechanism on the lens must be retained, but most of the old rangefinder lenses have very long minimum focus distance of about 0.8-1.0 meters (3 ft). I love to take close up pictures and this is just not very useful for me.  What I what is a method that allows me to focus very close, but also be able to attain infinity focus.  The answer is a helicoid with large opening, which allows the lens to go inside of the helicoid, and thus get closer to the sensor in order to achieve  infinity focus.  I found that most of these lenses have a barrel sizes just shy of 58mm, perfect to put a 58mm filter ring on the lens, and then mount the lens on the helicoid.

Rangefinder Lenses: On camera - Nikkor-H 48mm f2, on the right, Minolta Rokkor-PF 45mm f2, Fuji 4.5cm f1.9.

The focus helicoid I bought from the generic junk variant with a 58mm opening, and a 58mm mount. This helicoid has the same sh!t quality as the 17-32mm that I bought a few years ago.  When fully extended, there is a lot of play and it feels like it would break apart.  The German and Japanese have perfected the helicoid decades ago, and I just fail to see why we still have lousy quality on new helicoids.  But, helicoids with large opening is not easy to find and they are usually expensive, because most people would opt for the M42 version.  I just have to work with with I have.

So far, I have converted three lenses and they all work beautifully, except the Nikkor-H 48mm f2, which has the aperture stuck at wide open. The Fuji 4.5cm f1.9 and the Minolta Rokkor-PF 45mm f2 both works beautifully.  The lens can now focus very close, and yet I can still focus to infinity.

First snow storm in Toronto.  Shot through window - Fuji 4.5cm f1.9 & Sony A7.