Cheap and easily dismantled lens

[Stelrad P. Doulton]

Not sure if anyone has seen this - The Projector - 8mm Direct to 5Dmk2, but I'm attempting to give it a try.

The results are very impressive - http://vimeo.com/20900718 (view in HD to get the full effect of the quality).

I have a working projector but the replacement bulb is very expensive so I've used the LED light technique as seen in the clip.

All I need now is a lens that I can easily dismantle - any advice gratefully received (I have a Flektogon but I use it too much to sacrifice it for an experiment).

I don't have a FF camera, just a Canon 60D so I'm not actually sure if it will be possible to capture the full projected image or whether some experimentation will help, what do you think?

[fuzzywuzzy]

[Lloydy]

What bits of lenses do you need? I've got a boxful of 'spares' ( crap ) here, and there's a pile of stripped out parts and glass, and a few dead lenses.

[Stelrad P. Doulton]

I have a Helios 44 - somewhere.

The method used above uses the rear element and the body.
I'm actually wondering if projecting directly onto the sensor without these could work.
He mentions the rear element is to try and get a flat field image and the body is just a light shield.

[ForenSeil]

There's no reason to slaughter a lens! Actually the method he's using for projecting the film on the sensor is an optically quite bad idea, imo, because the "close-up-lens" he slaughtered is not corrected for any CAs, coma, field of sharpness curvature and so on and the projection lens used is optimized for a wide aperture and not for high resolution. With an slightly better setup you could very easily top his results!

At first you don't need to use the projection lens in first place at all.
Basically it's the same technique as photographing slides directly from an slide projector without projection lens, except that the "slides" are only a few mm large.

Unlike with slides you need a macro lens which does stronger magnifications than 1:1 of course.
Any "macro lens" which magnifies slightly higher than 1:1 would do the same job as his combo job but with much better IQ. (You need a about 4:1 to fully cover Canon APS-C with Super-8 film)

For best quality (without paying much money for dedicated high magnification lenses like Canon MP-E) I would highly recommend to use an reversed enlarger lens on bellows directly
Then you would have much less CAs and visibly higher overall-resolution and sharpness! If you consider that I would look for an El-Nikkor 50/2.8 for example, it works good when reversed up to 4:1 magnification and it is quite cheap. But basically every reversed enlarger lens should do it better than the method shown in the film.

If you don't have or want to buy an bellows you could also use a normal lens but reversed (with tubes if necessary, depening on focal length) - even that should deliver visibly better results!
All you need for that is an adapter for reversed mounting (and maybe a cheap set of extension tubes).

If you already have a tele or tele-macro lens (~100mm, ~135mm, or similar) you could also use your Flektogon or basically any other lens ~50mm or shorter reversed as strong close-up-achromat on it (which is optically fully corrected!)! Such an male-male filter thread adapter does cost less than 5 bucks on Ebay (Click here to see on Ebay.de for example) and you also don't need to slaughter any lens

(Here you can see an extension tube (not necessary in your case I think) + 100mm lens + male male 55mm filter thread mount adapter + reversed 40mm lens)


With that setup I was able to cover about 2:1 to 6:1 if I remember correctly - exactly what you need. And it also delivers nice quality, much better than the method in the video.

You would only need to remove the projection lens and aim with that setup directly on the film. Then you could start!

PS: If you wan't to slaughter a lens anyway, try to get an broken cheap noname 135/2.8 lens - they are cheap an in most cases easy to dismantle.Click here to see on Ebay.de

[Arctures]

Wow, ForenSeil, much appreciated for that info

[Tedat]

[ForenSeil]

[Stelrad P. Doulton]

Many thanks for all the info (and pictures) ForenSeil.

I'm going to search through all my bits and bobs this weekend to see if I have anything I can use.

I have a Tamron SP 90mm, extension tubes and a few standard lenses, an cheap 135mm as well as the Flektogon. It's just the reversal ring I may not have.

[Tedat]

thank you... looks very good for me and if this can even be improved with a better lens.. wow!

[philslizzy]

I guess this method could be used to transfer cine to my Nex in movie mode with a high enough magnification.

Thanks everyone for the ideas.



#cine transfer

[Stelrad P. Doulton]

I've just done my first experiment with this using bellows and a 50mm reversed enlarger but due to the distance within the projector of the mechanism (7 to 8cm) the image isn't filling the screen.

I tried a lens doubler just to see what difference it would make but obviously the loss of light and image quality are a problem.

Would I be correct in assuming that a 100mm+ reversed enlarger would increase the working distance? (forgive my macro ignorance!)

[Lightshow]