Konica C35 lens

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4745 Location: Cheshire, England

A friend at work was selling his old Konica C35. Wanted £25 for it. Interested I agreed to look.

What a mess. It had been dropped on its front, the lens was hanging off and the rangefinder was smashed. Unrepairable as the mounts that held the front of the lens to the camera had broken.
I got it for nothing - he insisted. Ready to throw it in the bin, I had a closer look.

The lens was quite easy to take off, with the intention of mounting it on my NEX. Holding it in front of the camera it was about 10mm away when focused on infinity. I made a ring out of thin plasticard to bridge the gap between the lens and the adapter.

The shutter and aperture are the same mechanism so unfortunately the aperture had to go. I managed to get it to focus but due to the damage I had to glue the lens into ASA selector. So now when it focuses the whole front turns. No problem really as it does work. I mounted it on the camera using the ring and my old friend the reversing ring. I filed down the filter thread side until the lens sat at infinity. I Glued it onto the ring and tidied it up with some epoxy putty. I covered the putty with black tape to make it neater. The black ring at the front is s piece of the camera leather covering the damage to the front.

here it is:

Some photos taken today, the vignetting is due to a 5mm waterhouse stop behind the lens (about f Cool

resized and auto contrast applied

This photo showing the original/auto contrast

then the last one with a 100% crop

I like this lens so compact!

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Good work! This is one my favorite compact RF, #1 sample is especially good!

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4745 Location: Cheshire, England

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

pretty common , just watch ebay you will find one, often go for peanuts.

SXR_Mark · Joined: 12 Jun 2010 Posts: 506 Location: England

I did a m4/3 conversion of this lens some time ago, adding an aperture from another lens.

Sadly, I found the performance of the Konica to be less than wonderful, being quite soft wide open. The crop of the Royal Liver Building shows the softness as well as some strong vignetting (which I didn't get on m4/3 of course). The vignetting must be pretty strong on 35mm.

This is my thread on this lens.

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4745 Location: Cheshire, England

The vignetting is due to a waterhouse stop F8 - f11 I normally use f5.6 with none. Nice machining and addition of an aperture. I did think of a way to do this unfortunately my aperture mechanism is too small.

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

Fantastic work! I have a bunch of broken cameras here that I still haven't got around to adapting...one day! Laughing