Bell&Howell 16mm Projection lens on bellows

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

This is the front two or three elements of a Bell&Howell 16mm film projection lens; before I separated it it was a 75mm f/2, now its more like a 100mm, maybe f/3. I mounted it on an M42 body cap and it easily goes on the bellows.

I was thinking this might make an interesting lens for "pictorial" purposes because of the narrow DOF, plus all the aberrations, and indeed these get a lot worse towards the edges, further emphasizing the center. And the bokeh is weird also. A deliberately "bad" lens, I hoped.

And so it is, more or less, but the effect is not consistent - the resulting pictures too often are too "normal", and it is surprisingly difficult to focus accurately. Even so, sometimes the effect does come out.

Samples -

poilu · Expire: 2019-08-29

beautiful lens
the surprisingly difficult to focus accurately reveal how god or bad is a lens
the funny is that this difference still exist with liveview and I can assume that even AF precision is dependent of lens quality
good lens have the focus snap and you know for sure when you got it

Nesster · Expire: 2014-02-20

Those flower shots especially are gorgeous, that's a great effect you get with the lens.