Hacking an old lens and bellows onto a Canon DSLR

Photo: Jake von Slatt I recently bought Canon's t2i DSLR camera and am having a lot of fun exploring the available lenses. I've avoided stuff from outside the Canon EF ecosystem so far, but after reading Jake von Slatt's post adapting old lenses on new cameras, a change my heart might be on the cards.

While I have absolutely no desire to revisit the days of film, I was kind of interested in what sort of image the old German made lens would produce on my modern Canon DSLR so I went in search of a way to attach it. I found machined custom metal adapters, and adapters made with scavenged old Canon lens, but I was looking for something cheaper and easier to mod. It all came together when I spotted an inexpensive plastic adapter made to mount the plastic lens from a Diana camera on a Canon DSLR.

The $10 Diana-to-Canon EF adapters are made of plastic and were so easy to hack to fit his old lens that Jake went on to attach a bellows lens scavenged from the town dump—a more involved procedure. Putting Old Lenses on a Canon DSLR [The Steampunk Workshop]

• [salsaman]

  With no example photos or in-the-field notes, I’m inclined to think this doesn’t work at all, and is (sorry) just another steampunk creation: cool looking for a minute, but useless except as a costume accessory.

• [shadowfirebird]

  Now that’s damned impressive.

  Those faked near field images that everyone was raving about a few months ago? You can shoot real ones.

• [penguinchris]

  I like it, but seriously… there’s no way this guy doesn’t have *one* test shot he could have shown. He showed really mundane test shots for the other lens hack that’s in the article, and he must realize that everyone will be interested in his bellows and not the other one. Plenty of people have put similar old lenses on cameras – such as in the Wired article that was mentioned on boingboing previously – but not hacked together something unique like this bellows lens.

  • [mdh]

    Yes, he just –must– be able to read your mind. You should refuse to pay him for his intransigence.

• [RioRico]

  Those incurious dullards who decry STEAMPUNK know nothing of photography. Bellows are made and sold today — search eBay/cameras for BELLOWS and you’ll find a zillion, new and used, bulky and compact, cheap and not so cheap, for many camera mounts. I use PK (Pentax K-mount) and M42 screwmount bellows with numerous diverse lenses and stuff.

  Bellows, often coupled with cheap extension tubes, are THE basic tools for macro-photography, for lens adaptations, for gonzo experimentation. Bellows should be in the kits of every (d)SLR photographer who wants to examine the small and/or strange. Recycle a broken camera or a dismantled Xray machine; replicate or exploit pre-modern optics; view the reflexions in an ant’s eyes; stretch your vision. WARNING: They are addictive.

• [Anonymous]

  Technically the robot from the next post could also use this to make a porno, maybe make a little money to get himself off the street…

• [Papapishu]

  Actually, if that’s an Exacta Mount, they make EXA-EOS adapters you can get straight from hong kong, although there is some difficulty reaching infinity focus. No hacking required, although I had some difficulty getting it off. I know this because I have an old Angeniux lens that I put on my T2i from ages past.

  http://forum.mflenses.com/best-exa-eos-adapter-t17654.html

• [Anonymous]

  Even the specific route this guy went in attaching the lens isn’t particularly unique. I did the same thing last year using a lens from an old vest-pocket camera, and I know I’m not the first person to think of it. You can get some pretty impressive macro shots this way. Here’s one I took: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danklockenkemper/4724050762/in/set-72157624331039170/

• [Jaan]

  As someone said before; this is trivial.

  One of the coolest men I’ve ever know, Steven K. Grimes, actually had a company that specialized in exactly this sort of thing…adapting different lenses to work with different shutters and so forth, mostly for large format cameras but also for other specialized situations. He did it thousands of times.

  Sadly, this wonderful man died in 2003 at age 60, however his company still exists. http://www.skgrimes.com/

• [millrick]

  i love these hacks
  – it’s the willingness to experiment that pushes art forward

• [RioRico]

  This is trivial. I’ve been sticking whatever optical materials will fit into a bellows for quite a while — like, off-and-on since 1976, much more lately. For cheap edge-to-edge flatfield sharpness, use enlarger lenses (EL’s), which sometimes sell four-for-a-dime. EL’s and other lenses with focal lengths longer than 80mm will reach infinity focus on most SLR bellows, and so can be used for both macro and non-macro shooting.

  For period looks and a bit of funkiness, use lenses from old box and folding and Polaroid cameras, or projector lenses. For MUCH funkiness, use close-up lenses, magnifiers, eyeglasses, plastic crud pulled from old Dianas, etc. Or go nutz with decorative crystal prisms and faceted teardrops. Try Fresnel and diffraction gratings. Try ANY optical material.

  DON’T use lenses from 35mm point-and-shoots unless you only want closeups. DON’T disassemble old 35mm rangefinders for their lenses; it’s too much work and they’re still only good for closeups. For sharper closeups/macros, reverse the lens. DON’T butcher a rare old lens to make it fit on a camera or bellows mount; plenty of crap lenses are available for sacrifice.

  Many lenses can be non-destructively adapted by using contact cement to glue on sections of ultra-cheap macro tubes, then mounted on camera or bellows — and the glue can be dissolved with thinner, to return the lens to its original state. For really cheapo adapters, get some one-buck plastic camera body caps and cut holes to fit the lenses.

  Sticking stuff into bellows — ah, there’s a worldwide subculture! Optics junkies, thrift-shot aficionados, impoverished experimenters, those of us trying to exploit photographic gear in different ways. We talk about these and other subjects on http://forum.mflenses.com/ (the Manual Focus Lenses forums) and http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/ (Pentax forums — hay, Canon guys, quit taking all our old Pentax lenses! You’re jealous, just because they’re better than yours…) and elsewhere. Y’all are invited. –RioRico

• [Rob]

  So would this be like finding a hot supermodel and then making a porno with W.C. Fields?

• [Rob Beschizza]

  Wow, thread winner in 1.

  • [Ushao]

    Yeah I was going to get my snark on but now I’ve got nothin!

    I’ll have to try something like this when I’ve got a few extra bucks.

• [imag]

  Yeah, I can’t top that.

  I do wish there were photos of the result…

  …although perhaps I don’t really want to see a WC Fields porno.

• [mccrum]

  I just felt it important to express the magnitude of brilliance that comment contains. Brilliant. Damn, I wish I’d thought of that.

  • [MadMolecule]

    I’m sure Rob wishes he’d thought of it too.

    (Unless “Rob” is actually Jason Weisberger, in which case: Well played, sir.)

    • [mccrum]

      A twist I hadn’t even considered…

      Of course there was the Wired article talking about a guy who fit a hundred year old lens on his 5Dii, but that other thread got so vitriolic I couldn’t look at it anymore.
      http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/09/102-year-old-lens-on-canon-5d-mkii/

• [TheCrawNotTheCraw]

  What, no steam punk, too?

  Mount the camera on a brass diver’s helmet, and add some non-functional vacuum tubes.