E F L Buhl Pittsburgh 4.5 inch

[jamaeolus]

So I got this for 9.00 USD. It is just a barrel with glass. No mount. No helical, and no aperture. I looked around for a way to test it and came up with the following: Nex to EOS helicoid, 72mm EOS reverse ring. I found a 72mm threaded tube on a Rollei Hheidosmat projection lens that th lens would slid loosely inside.. taped some thin packing foam and it fit snugly.

[RokkorDoctor]

[jamaeolus]

Well.... I could see I needed a tube to slide it into so I dug through my baskets of camera junk and spotted that tube. Fortuitously it was just the right inside diameter such that with the thin film foam it slides inside so tightly that i can push or pull the lens inside the tube but it wont budge if i happen to point the camera down. Sometimes you just luck out. The tube is of course flocked, so it also served as a lens hood. I ca n slide it close enough to get infinity and out far enough to get close macro. The images?






Very soft, very glowy. I am wondering if it is part of system that had additional elements. The really out of focus ones were taken with the lens reversed.

[eggplant]

Don't quite a few lenses like this, when unit focused to quite short distances, become glowy? Particularly a projection one like this which could be a triplet/petzval.

[jamaeolus]

While that is true they generally aren't THIS bad. I might slip a aperture in behind it if it will fit. I have an m42 to m42 with aperture that might work.

[eggplant]

Oh, to be fair- I have a Optical Comparator lens of 10 inches that basically produces images like this, even at far distances (CA, glow etc).

[jamaeolus]

Here are acoupe where I slid the m42 aperture adapter inside. It was easy, as I have a larger m42 to m52 with a reducer back to m42 that slid right inside the rollei 72mm tube. It was very dark and rainy when I took these though they are still rather underexposed. But enough to give an idea.

[jamaeolus]

Oh, also the aperture was approximately midway open. I'm guessing in the F8 range.

[KEO]

The blur on that last shot is quite nice.

[jamaeolus]

thanks. I think the results are encouraging. These were just a few quick snaps this AM before I went to work. It was raining cats and dogs and was very dark. I am hoping to get some shots this afternoon with sunshine, we have "scattered showers and thunderstorms" going through the PNW right now.

[jamaeolus]

[jamaeolus]

I think it is actually pretty good with the aperture behind the lens.