My dad used to be into photography like 20 years ago, and he brought his lenses from Ukraine.
Left to right,
soviet Zenith Tair-11A 135 mm f/2.8
soviet Arsenal (I think) Granit-11N 80-200 mm f/4.6
DDR Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 20mm f/2.8
all manual (obv) but it's still kinda fun to use them. Haven't really taken anything with them yet, just shot odd things at home, and the lenses hold their age surprisingly well. Although I am not really able to use the Granit because it has a Nikon bayonet and I don't have an adapter. It also has this weird shutter release lever thing. I'm not sure what kind of an adapter would work for this one, so I'd love suggestions!
Ok, so I finally got around to making a bonafide tilt lens(this doesnt shift, just tilts), based on the plungercam guy's writeups. I started out with a junky Olympus 50mm 1.4 that i was keeping around for parts, removed the rear assembly and ground down anything i could that was sticking up to make it as short as possible. Then I cut to size a bit of rubber thing, something i found at the hardware store in the plumbing section, and hot glued that bitch to a m42 -> EOS adaptor. I ground out the hole on the m42 adaptor to give a little more room for the lens to tilt as well.
The lens just rests inside the rubber part, and I can tilt around, the clamp is adjustable so that it doesnt fall out, and since its a nice OM lens, i can adjust aperture on the front of the lens, and even finely tweak the focus by rotating the front of the lens as well.
First tests i did just out in the backyard were really lame, so I decided to go trainspotting and give myself a bigger target. BAM, these turned out great with little effort, pretty much exactly how i wanted it to work. I was real worried that I wouldn't get enough clearance with this lens. Its still a pretty limited range, so I'm going to make another with a medium format lens(possibly tilt/shift).
I think these all were shot at F2.0, overall the output is pretty soft, but i wasn't after exacting sharpness with this sort of setup.
Nice! I was trying to do similar shots with my point and shoot, and wasn't too happy with the results (yet). I wasn't using my tripod, and things were too blurry.
You could try something similar, the flange distance is like 100mm instead of ~45mm, so you have a lot of play there. That may be too far for free lensing tho.
Notman - the canon 500d (rebel t1i) has the ability to have a constantly open shutter so you can use the screen zoomed in to pixels to get a perfect (except movement from my wobbly hands) works well for getting these macro tilts sharpe, fricken hard to get a long range one when free-lensing
EQ- cheers dude, i saw that page with the homemade tilt lenses in a while back but wasnt sure about the effort/difficulty of it but your shots look great might give it a go
New lens! Still have some more work to do on the construction but got some initial tests.
This is an 80mm medium format lens, so I had a lot more room to play with here. Constructed the tilting mechanism out of some PVC plumbing, screwed onto an m42 adaptor. I actually fucked it up a little and it focuses past infinity, but I dont think its much of an issue for this sort of use. At 80mm its much more compressed than the other one, but I can get some ridiculous tilt now. Most of the test shots I took are way over done, because I was using max tilt. Its sort of difficult to tell how well your shots are coming out on the tiny 350D screen, in a blizzard. =P
I'll get some more shots up of the lens when i'm finished on it, and want to try getting up on some parking ramps and getting crowd shots sometime, but will need to wait for a bit better weather.
And then pick out a suitable lens, generally a medium format lens will give you lots of room. Mine is a Zenza Bronica, Mayamia 645, Penta 645, Petnacon 6, russian Kiev 6/60/88, and Zenit 80, you can probably find a lens for these systems for relatively cheap. I think I paid about $40 for mine. Most T/S lenses will cost 500+, and modern Canon TSE lenses are $1200+, so it can be a pretty good deal to make your own.
New lens, the optical characteristics of this really aren't impressive at all, but the size is! I ripped out a Rikenon 40mm 2.8 lens from a 126 film format compact/rangefinder thing. I wanted to see how small of a lens I could "build". I removed it from the camera, ripped out the internal shutter and aperture(as there was no way to control these, so they had to go) bad part is it only shoots wide open, and is quite hard to focus. With enough luck it works though!
The rear plate on the lens ended up being just about the perfect size, I had to grind down the threads on an m42 adaptor and then it fit right in!
I want to try getting a 35-40mm 1.7 or 1.9 lens to play with, maybe out of a Canonet QL 17 or 19, but will have to wait to find one for a few bucks.
I get a distinct "soft focus" type effect when the focus isn't set quite right, not sure why this is. Simple lens construction?
So i got a pentax m42 50mm 1.4 and some other stuff on ebay, came with a little modular filter holder thing, so i cut a circular peice of cardboard out of a kashi cookie box, cut some heartz into it and threw it in the filter holder. Instant bokeh shapes!
Replies
Left to right,
soviet Zenith Tair-11A 135 mm f/2.8
soviet Arsenal (I think) Granit-11N 80-200 mm f/4.6
DDR Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 20mm f/2.8
all manual (obv) but it's still kinda fun to use them. Haven't really taken anything with them yet, just shot odd things at home, and the lenses hold their age surprisingly well. Although I am not really able to use the Granit because it has a Nikon bayonet and I don't have an adapter. It also has this weird shutter release lever thing. I'm not sure what kind of an adapter would work for this one, so I'd love suggestions!
The lens just rests inside the rubber part, and I can tilt around, the clamp is adjustable so that it doesnt fall out, and since its a nice OM lens, i can adjust aperture on the front of the lens, and even finely tweak the focus by rotating the front of the lens as well.
First tests i did just out in the backyard were really lame, so I decided to go trainspotting and give myself a bigger target. BAM, these turned out great with little effort, pretty much exactly how i wanted it to work. I was real worried that I wouldn't get enough clearance with this lens. Its still a pretty limited range, so I'm going to make another with a medium format lens(possibly tilt/shift).
I think these all were shot at F2.0, overall the output is pretty soft, but i wasn't after exacting sharpness with this sort of setup.
been doing some free-lensing with my 50mm its great for close up macros but im not able to get the long range shit in
plus i love the danger
Shep: yeah because of the flange distance all you'll be able to do is make a macro lens like that, unless you can take a lens and modify it like i did. I just ordered a medium format lens for like $36.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&item=320628339440&si=i6NGVImsx58aAp1qc4ksaIDuq%252Bc%253D&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT
You could try something similar, the flange distance is like 100mm instead of ~45mm, so you have a lot of play there. That may be too far for free lensing tho.
EQ- cheers dude, i saw that page with the homemade tilt lenses in a while back but wasnt sure about the effort/difficulty of it but your shots look great might give it a go
anyone tried pinholing their DSLR?
This is an 80mm medium format lens, so I had a lot more room to play with here. Constructed the tilting mechanism out of some PVC plumbing, screwed onto an m42 adaptor. I actually fucked it up a little and it focuses past infinity, but I dont think its much of an issue for this sort of use. At 80mm its much more compressed than the other one, but I can get some ridiculous tilt now. Most of the test shots I took are way over done, because I was using max tilt. Its sort of difficult to tell how well your shots are coming out on the tiny 350D screen, in a blizzard. =P
I'll get some more shots up of the lens when i'm finished on it, and want to try getting up on some parking ramps and getting crowd shots sometime, but will need to wait for a bit better weather.
Those shots remind me of back home
start here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/focusing-ts.shtml
then: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/tilt-shift-lenses2.htm
Then find out the flange distance for your camera: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance
http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~westin/misc/mounts-by-register.html
And then pick out a suitable lens, generally a medium format lens will give you lots of room. Mine is a Zenza Bronica, Mayamia 645, Penta 645, Petnacon 6, russian Kiev 6/60/88, and Zenit 80, you can probably find a lens for these systems for relatively cheap. I think I paid about $40 for mine. Most T/S lenses will cost 500+, and modern Canon TSE lenses are $1200+, so it can be a pretty good deal to make your own.
(nice photos as well btw
The rear plate on the lens ended up being just about the perfect size, I had to grind down the threads on an m42 adaptor and then it fit right in!
I want to try getting a 35-40mm 1.7 or 1.9 lens to play with, maybe out of a Canonet QL 17 or 19, but will have to wait to find one for a few bucks.
I get a distinct "soft focus" type effect when the focus isn't set quite right, not sure why this is. Simple lens construction?
http://vimeo.com/22465723