Saved Retina-Xenon 50mm F2 from A broken Retina II

[koji]

Sorry I did not record the conversion process, the lens is now Leica M-mount.

I have Retina IIIc which has the same lens, so I converted this lens, and was curious to see
the lens' performance with digital sensor. Focus from 1m to infinity, in permanent BULB mode
to control F-stop since I did not modify its shutter mechanism.


Just with Ricoh GXR-M (Hood is for normal film camera, just too wide for APS-C size censor)


Shot @f5.6 Mustang (ever popular sport coupe) with Ricoh GXR-M
[url=http://forum.mflenses.com/userpix/20138/big_651_A12_RX5020_0013349_1.jpg]
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Brick building and a new condo @f4 with Ricoh GXR-M


The lens produces deep color as you see in the above, but does not have great micro contrast IMO.

More examples are here: http://www.pbase.com/kkawakami/other_retina_xenon_50mm_f20

The process: The lens head and its shutter mechanism was taken from Retina II (type 011), and
it was glued to the inner part from Konica Hexanon 50/1.7 and the whole assembly was fixed to
a spare flangeless M42-ring, which came with M42->E adapter I bought. Then the whole thing was
glued to L->M adapter to make M mount lens. You do not need fine infinity adjustment, it does
focus to infinity luckily, no over-inf neither. The most difficult process was to take the lens out
from Retina II, the second one is to make it in "permanent Bulb mode" as you see from the pic.

[caspert79]

Nice project! Always interesting to see how these kind of lenses perform on a digital camera. I still have an Agfa Super Silette somewhere with a Solagon 50/2.0 lens on it. Maybe i save it for a similar project!

[iangreenhalgh1]

The cells of this lens will fit into the barrel of a Schneider enlarging lens of 100mm length, if you want to make it neater.

[IAZA]

looks cool appearance
good job, good results

[David]

That's a really fantastic pairing.