[Brightcolours]

It will be interesting and fun if we (PZ readers) share our unusual lens/camera combinations, home made accessories, adapters and other hobby projects with eachother. So, do you have a Leica R on your Nikon D4, a Canon EF 1.0 L USM on your NEX-5N, a Zeiss-Contax 85mm on your Canon 1D mk III, share it please

Here is one of my more silly projects:

I have this old film projector lens from a Dutch instruments company from the past (Old Delft), a Delfinor 140mm f1.8.

I thought it would be fun and interesting to be able to mount it on my DSLR (Canon EOS 450D).

I cut the top and bottom off a small can (formerly filled with olives), and glued that to a piece of plywood. To that I screwed an EF mount which I salvaged from a deceased Sigma lens.

I lined the inside of the tin with some soft packing material to make the lens fit more snugly, and spray-painted the inside and outside black.

This now allows me to (crudely) push/pull focus.

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

Above you see the lens posing on a Canon EOS 300/Rebel 2000.

The lens obviously does not perform to modern standards, especially since it was never designed for photography. I have not experimented with it much yet (weather is rather rainy), and I do not know if the sample that follows is optimally focussed on that tulip, so not clear yet on its maximum resolution (which is not high anyway).

I was surprised how pleasant the bokeh is in the background. The front bokeh seems less agreeable. Obviously, this lens can't be stopped down... So 140mm f1.8 it is.

[davidmanze]

  Strange route but really very nice,lovely soft bokeh!   

[Brightcolours]

  Strange route but really very nice,lovely soft bokeh!   

Yeah, I was surprised too just how soft the bokeh is with that lens in such a distance.

[Brightcolours]

Here is another hobby project:

 

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

 

A ROWI vintage ballhead bolted to a solid steel disk. It provides me with a very low (9cm), yet stable (over 1.5 kg, bottom covered with rubber) support for my camera.

On top I put an aluminium part to enable paralax-free horizontal stitching, and glued part of a plastic ruler to note the distances for the different lenses. Now all I need to make is an aluminium L-plate.

 

 

[Guest]

Not that silly, but still required getting a bunch of different components together.

 

An old slide holder, adapter ring, the center part of mechanical extension tubes, another adapter ring, mounted on a Canon 60mm macro lens   => Slide copy set-up. 

 

http://photonius.wikispaces.com/Slide+copier

[Brightcolours]

Not that silly, but still required getting a bunch of different components together.

 

An old slide holder, adapter ring, the center part of mechanical extension tubes, another adapter ring, mounted on a Canon 60mm macro lens   => Slide copy set-up. 

 

http://photonius.wikispaces.com/Slide+copier

Not silly at all, but very interesting

I found an old slide holder too, but I have to find/figure out a diffuser for it still. When I manage that and 1.6:1 magnification on my 1.6x crop camera, I will show it to you too!

 

Thanks for sharing, a really nice setup.

[Guest]

Not silly at all, but very interesting

I found an old slide holder too, but I have to find/figure out a diffuser for it still. When I manage that and 1.6:1 magnification on my 1.6x crop camera, I will show it to you too!

 

Thanks for sharing, a really nice setup.

 

I also have a microscope adapter made from the outer part of developed super 8 film cartridges (basically plastic rings) that mounts on the bayonette ring of a 55mm macro lens (yeah, old FD lens days) and fits over the eye-piece of a microscope. Alas, it's "in storage" now, no pics.

 

I'm also tinkering with wide-angle macro, inspired by you, but lack of time haven't gotten me anywhere yet, it involves some DIY work as well.

[borisbg]

Here is another hobby project:

 

camerabase.jpg

 

A ROWI vintage ballhead bolted to a solid steel disk. It provides me with a very low (9cm), yet stable (over 1.5 kg, bottom covered with rubber) support for my camera.

On top I put an aluminium part to enable paralax-free horizontal stitching, and glued part of a plastic ruler to note the distances for the different lenses. Now all I need to make is an aluminium L-plate.

BC, this is not silly... it looks prety clever to me.

[Brightcolours]

BC, this is not silly... it looks prety clever to me.

Well, it is multiple choice haha... Not everything has to be silly, it can be interesting or unusual too. Or clever, if you wish.

Thanks

[JJ_SO]

This project was my start with DSLR about 4 or 5 years ago. I wanted to put my old slides into the computer to get a bit an overview of all the mostly horrible and few nice photos over some decades. For that reason, my expectations to quality were not high. And for the better pictures I would just afford some decent scans which is pretty much never happening. 

 

The scan process was very slow. After a friend borrowed me a Fuji DSLR to reproduce MF slides I thought "why not use that old Carousel projector, with a much less powerful lamp behind a diffusor and a lens from the enlarger, mounted on a selfmade distance ring and then 80 times transport-click, transport-click...?" After all, the Pentax had IR remote control.

 

The whole process was even longer than the last sentence. And getting some 10000 slides into a harddisk is also not the most exciting thing, but still was a bit quicker than scanning. I learnt a thing or two about working with passed projects/times, facing old memories, "wasting" life-time for old pictures while there's so much more interesting to photograph these days.

 

Well, the benefit was content for some birthday albums or invitation cards of old friends.