Q4 2023 (Oct-Dec) — Through Your Adapted Lens

This thread is intended as a place to show your images made with adapted lenses, DIY optics and any other optical experiments you might come up with.

Of course showing and discussing images is a central part, but please don't hesitate to also share any kind of additional information regarding your lenses, adapting solutions and tools as well as your experiences and impressions, as this can be highly interesting and valuable information for anyone interested in looking beyond regular modern taking lenses.

Here are some broad guidelines:

• Images with a removable adapter between lens and camera
• Images with the lens mount permanently modified to fit a different camera
• Images with the lens held by hand without an adapter (freelensing)
• Including metadata (camera, lens, aperture, shutter speed) is encouraged but not required.
• Images can be, but are not required to have been taken this month, so feel free to add some adapted lens shots from your archives as well

Comments are encouraged, but please keep them friendly and constructive.

We have changed the format of this thread from a monthly to a quarterly-based one. If you have any feedback regarding the guidelines or general description of the thread or some new ideas, please don't hesitate to let me know - I'm always open for suggestions and happy to share the joy and creative freedom adapted lenses can provide with as many people as possible!

simplejoy

The Yashica Auto-Yashinon 5 cm f/2 is said to have been made by Tomioka and suspected to be identical with both the Tominon C 5 cm f/2 and closely related to the Auto Takumar 55 mm f/1.8. Yes, some even claim that Takumar was made by Tomioka... isn't that something? 😉

Here's more information on that: pakira3.sakura.ne.jp/wp/?p=4380

Anyway, I Love the rendering of the Auto-Yashinon and feel like it's one that works exceptionally well for certain subjects.

Blushinon by simple.joy, on Flickr

This was the hot stuff once… by simple.joy, on Flickr

What if it isn't a reflection... but a parallel universe? by simple.joy, on Flickr

Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar made for analog printing.

I took this picture with Fax Topcor lens which seems to be quite sharp. I have not made any tests for sharpness and can not do such.
This shot I tried to focus at character "T". Maybe the number "3" to right from "T" is sharper.

I think 130 mm focal lenght is good to smallish objects. The diameter of the front barrel of Tessar is 32 mm.
The lens came with a green filter. So I was a little afraid of CA's but I don't see those.

Fax Topcor mounted in Hasselblad 16 mm extension ring mounted in Cambo Actus. (There's a 21mm HBL extension between those and a Linhof filter holder with hood infront of the lens).
Snaps taken with Canon EF 200 mm 1:2.8 L II + EF 1.4x II ( adapted with Sigma mc-11 ).

Very nice! Great shot and both interesting lenses.

The lens seems quite sharp indeed. I feel like CAs are visible, but it doesn't matter at all in this image and I love the background bokeh circles. Do you know if these lenses were made for a similar purpose than the Fax-Nikkor lenses?

And what device or application was the Tessar used in? Some kind of industrial enlarger?

I really don't know, but I guess the Tessar was an usual enlarging lens, customer quality. It's a very small lens, but seems to be very nice. I once tried it as portrait lens, with succession. I don't think it was something special technically.

I don't know how to tell it to you, you are a young guy. But in 1940's, 1950's, 1960's ,1970's , maybe later it was quite usual to make your own prints of your negatives by yourself at home.

I have to add that I don't know anything about that Fax Topcor. I only bought it from internet.

😂 True, I was born after the era of developing your film at home and I also don't have any experience with doing that myself, but I'm quite familiar with the concept of enlargers and probably one of the biggest enlarging lens enthusiasts out there. But as far as I know Zeiss didn't make many enlargers and thus they almost don't have any designated enlarging lenses. Many of the Zeiss lenses used on enlargers were actually developed for industrial, microfilm, microlitography and repro-applications. That's what I was wondering about.

There are excellent Tessar-type lenses out there, both by Zeiss as well as others... I'm regularly impressed by how well they hold up! Have you ever heard of the S-Tessar series? I feel like they might be among the best of their kind.

When I looked better I saw CAs at the white engraved characters, blues behind the focal plane and reds and yellows in front of it. It is also very prone to flare.

I took couple shots with Topcor at F7 and then with SK Apo-Digitar m 120mm at F11. First heavy crop from Topcor and second slightly cropped Apo-Digitar.
Both are OOC jpegs.

CAs look worse than in the Tessar shot, flare is visible if compared with next shot.

The wind disturbed my shooting.

I like this as a thread idea, but is there going to be enough content to warrant a monthly thread vs a much longer type of situation like say every 6 months?

Or quarterly?

SimpleJoy asked if there's any reason to start a new monthly tread. I answered by my side.

I think that‘s a good amount of time! Thanks everyone for the suggestion - I‘ll try to see if I can change it.

Kinda feels like cheating, but EF mount lens babySpark on a Lumix G9. Either a dummy adapter or Viltrox speedbooster.

Thanks again for your suggestions - I've changed the thread title and description and will try to keep the thread alive in this or some altered form, because it definitely offers something unique compared to the other image-sharing and discussion threads.

Very interesting - thanks a lot for the comparison! Of course it's not a fair one, given the likely age and different purpose (and price) of those lenses, but it's great to see anyway. Of course the Fax-Topcor doesn't hold up compared with the Apo-Digitar (this one is said to be almost identical to the Makro-Symmar 120 mm), but I'm sure it does pretty well in many cases.

Because I've mentioned the S-Tessar 75 mm f/4.5, I thought I'd offer a comparison as well. Following your lead I also tried to compare it to an Apo-Digitar, but the 90 mm f/4.5 version. To be fair, both of these lenses are a bit out of their ideal range here, but I think it doesn't matter too much, what becomes pretty clear (at least in my eyes), is that the S-Tessar does hold up nicely and has the advantage of a more beautiful bokeh, while the Apo-Digitar offers even better CA correction and a bit more contrast.

Apo-Digitar 90 mm f/4.5

live.staticflickr.com/65535/53298878665_9f6f4b04c0_4k.jpg

S-Tessar 75/4.5

live.staticflickr.com/65535/53298404711_0e1b6e2f87_4k.jpg

Nice comparison. I looks like you could make great pictures with any lens. What is the magnification in those?
Btw. The Apo-Digitar 90mm should be identical with Apo-Componon HM. I have seen somewhere a data sheet of Apo-Componon 90mm, same kind like this and with identical drawing and measures: www.davechewphotography.com//temp_images/pdf/ALPA_Schneider90_f4.5_N_MTF.pdf but I can not remember where it was. Are you aware of these: davechewphotography.com/skdata/ ?

May I add one more Tessar design lens shot with Fax Topcor? OK, I'll do. These are taken with that included green filter and color balanced in RawTherapee keeping them still color photos, not conversed to B&W. You can see a little CAs in 100% crop, not bad. The lens is quite sharp, focused to X.

This is a Zenza Bronica Zenzanon-PG 150mm F4 lens adapted to a Pentax 645Z. Lens was made for their 6x7 slr. It is very small - roughly the length of a Pentax 645 DFA55! Granted there's no AF, but the Bronica has a leaf shutter and is made for a larger format. I love the slower F4 max aperture vs. the Pentax 67 165 F2.8. This allows beautiful bokeh with a little more dof. The lenadapter is a Fotodiox. I was worried about the leaf shutter causing problems - there are none. The only hitch is the lack of a way to easily stop the lens down. The Bronica has a push lever that doesn't lock. I solved the problem by using wire ties around the lens to keep the lever depressed. A little crude but it works. F4, 1/200 at ISO 1250. Not sure why both pictures don't show. clicking the pic of the lens solves it. Shot Raw with only slight exposure adjustment and a little sharpening in post.
[IMGP4284bronicaPG150WEB.jpg(/a/thumb/oFCQfLmRbu9D1zZY580dwKQRf3miwbe2VYoEpVPwYJTvgCQra2RA9J29Hj1I29bS/18106/?shva=1)

Thanks for looking,
barondla

I don't think that's cheating! I've always been curious about the lensbaby line, but don't own one myself. Are you enjoying the Spark variant?

Really nice result - the colors look fantastic! I've considered a couple of Medium Format lenses for adaption, but some of the necessary adapters would have cost me a fortune, so I never got around to it... And I've heard resolution is usually not outstanding as well. The most interesting variant would be using a speed booster, but those things are way too expensive as well and not available for many MF lens mounts as far as I know.

Seems like you found a nice combination and used it very well. Do you have a bigger version of that image?