I love the visual qualities of that lens. Wow! The slight softness, the vignette, the muted tones. I have bags full of old lenses and lens elements (going back to cameras from about 1920) myself and now I'm inspired to do something with them on my own digital body. What fun!
102 year old lens attached to digital camera
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#12Site is down :( Coral Cache not working either.
Not quite! It's working intermittently; try more.
Mirror, just in case: http://fileability.net/mirror/cinema5d.com/
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#13So this is a 102 year old lens mounted on modern Canon DSLR. Obviously it requires an adapter to physically mate the two. Not to take anything away from that, but I thought I'd point out that you can mount 50 year old Nikon lenses on modern Nikon DSLRs, no adapter required, due to Nikon's commitment to the F-mount it introduced in 1959: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_F-mount
> So this is a 102 year old lens mounted on modern Canon DSLR Isn’t that precisely what is suggested by the title? Also, this isn’t any “adapter”: > My friend, a Russian lens technician, who loves nothing more than to frankenstein equipment [...] called me into his store in NYC. [...] He found in a box of random parts, hidden inside anther lens this gem. A circa 1908 (possibly earlier) 35mm lens. Still functioning, m…
Article also specifies the type of lens:
>This is a circa 1908 Wollensak 35mm F5.0 Cine-Velostigmat hand cranked cinema camera lens
Which is not a Canon lens.
In other words, he probably should have read the article.
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#14Does anyone know where you could find a how-to guide to do this yourself? Or is this the type of thing best left to professionals?
It may be a 39mm lens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M39_lens_mount You could start with a T-mount adapter to get to 42mm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-mount http://www.adorama.com/LNTMEOS.html Then a 42mm to 39mm step-down adapter ring: http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-M39-Adapter-Zeiss-Pentax/dp/B... Not sure about the clearances, and you may not get infinity focus depending upon how far out the lens ends up being s…
Thank you for the help I am going to look into this. I appreciate the links.
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#15Does anyone know where you could find a how-to guide to do this yourself? Or is this the type of thing best left to professionals?
While it's not the same, there are several how to's for using a Holga lens with a DSLR (like http://www.howcast.com/videos/217390-How-To-Make-Your-Holga-... ). Extrapolating from these would certainly help get you at least part way there.
Awesome, thank you, much appreciated. This is a good start for me.
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So this is a 102 year old lens mounted on modern Canon DSLR Isn’t that precisely what is suggested by the title? Also, this isn’t any “adapter”: > My friend, a Russian lens technician, who loves nothing more than to frankenstein equipment [...] called me into his store in NYC. [...] He found in a box of random parts, hidden inside anther lens this gem. A circa 1908 (possibly earlier) 35mm lens. Still functioning, m…
Article also specifies the type of lens: > This is a circa 1908 Wollensak 35mm F5.0 Cine-Velostigmat hand cranked cinema camera lens Which is not a Canon lens. In other words, he probably should have read the article.
I read the link and I wasn't denigrating it at all. I was just trying to point out that it reminded me of the Nikon F-Mount which has been a very durable mount.
For many photographers, lenses are the most expensive part of the camera system and it's nice that Nikon has kept their camera bodies backwards compatible with their lenses for 50 years. It is also largely forward compatible (allowing modern Nikon lenses to be used on older Nikon cameras).
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#17Does anyone know where you could find a how-to guide to do this yourself? Or is this the type of thing best left to professionals?
It may be a 39mm lens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M39_lens_mount You could start with a T-mount adapter to get to 42mm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-mount http://www.adorama.com/LNTMEOS.html Then a 42mm to 39mm step-down adapter ring: http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-M39-Adapter-Zeiss-Pentax/dp/B... Not sure about the clearances, and you may not get infinity focus depending upon how far out the lens ends up being s…
The Canon EF mount has a fairly short back focal distance = the distance between the back of the lens and the film/sensor is less than most other cameras so it's easy to make an adapter to hold another lens the correct distance away.
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#18No background in optics, physics or serious photography, but I am curious: What sorts of effects or "feel" does an ancient lens like this typically generate, and why? For instance, will the lens elongate, fade, or gather microscopic pitting?
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#19No background in optics, physics or serious photography, but I am curious: What sorts of effects or "feel" does an ancient lens like this typically generate, and why? For instance, will the lens elongate, fade, or gather microscopic pitting?
My money's on that this lens is a Cooke Triplet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooke_triplet which was (and is) a fairly neutral lens design.
There is some astigmatic aberration as well as vignetting visible in the photos provided, but it's possible that this lens was intended for a smaller image circle than 24x36 sensor in the 5DmkII. All lenses will have astigmatic aberration and vignetting at the edge of their image circle (which is normally outside the photographic media the image is being projected onto).
This lens is uncoated and highly susceptible to lens flare. As I understand it, many lenses before the 4-element Zeiss Tessar also tend to have more pronounced flare than later lens formulas. You can really see this in some of the photos.
Overall, it's neat little lens and I would shoot it in a heartbeat. It looks very sharp in the center with gentle fall-off near the edges. The owner could go a long way to get the most out of it by crafting a little lens hood for it -- it really helps with older lenses like this.
Re: 102 year old lens attached to digital camera
#20I've known the photographer for about 8 years, he does lots of interesting projects like this.