fisheye for large format?

bicycletricycle · Nov 10, 2005

has any one ever made a large format fisheye? What about adapting a medium format lense to a board with a roll film back? Would the effect of camera movements be noticeable? i guess the shutter would be the hard part, any way to find out the image circle of a medium format lense? probably 1mm bigger than it needs to be.

Ole · Nov 10, 2005

The first fish eye lenses were made when LF was all there was, so yes, someone has done it.

A MF lens could "easily" be adapted - that's one of the great things about LF.

You'd get a circular image covering 180°. Movements would make no difference - tilts would make part of the image unsharp.

Image circle? Just big enough to make a 180° image - so a circular fisheye would give the same size circle; a full-frame fisheye would be exactly enough to cover the format it's made for. Fisheye's don't have excess coverage as a rule.

Struan Gray · Nov 10, 2005

MXV Photographic in the UK have a "Mamiya 37 mm fisheye/adapted into Copal" for a mere £750 should you wish to try it out.

You could rather easily front mount the Zodiac/Arsat 30 mm fisheye, designed to clear the mirror on Kiev and Pentacon MF SLRs. I don't know the image circle, but if it's a pure fisheye, it should project 180° onto a 94 mm circle. Vignetting by the mount might limit this, but if not it's a good match to 4x5 sheet film.

dphphoto · Nov 11, 2005

A 65mm lens on 8X10 would give a circular image without the exagerated perspective common to fisheye lenses on roll film cameras. If you want the bowed lines, well, that's another fish altogether.
I once taped an 80mm rodenstock rodagon enlarging lens to a copal press 0 shutter. It gave a nearly circular image on 4X5, but again without the exagerated perspective. Dean

TerryThomasAtlanta · Nov 11, 2005

With the Rodagon throwing an image onto 4x5 what kind of sharpness resulted?

I'm curious because when a LasVegas photo lab closed up I purchased one of their 240mm f5.6 Componon enlarging lenses thinking some day I would have it adapted to a shutter.

But before I do am I wasting my money? One fellow reminded me this lens is formulated to take an image from a negative and throw it only a short distance to the enlarging paper.

When I'm using it, he said, the lens will not be "looking" at enlarging paper but subjects very far away or to infinity.

So he thinks sharpness will suffer.

Is he right? Did I waste my money on an enlarging lens thinking I could use it as I would a normal lens?

Thanks.

Terry Thomas
Atlanta, Georgia

See my stills from the set of the forthcoming feature film "Psychopathia Sexualis" here: www.psychopathia.com

Jeremy · Nov 11, 2005

Why not make up a lensboard out of gaffer's tape and cardboard and try out that bad boy? Just stop down and use the old hat method and you can easily rattle off a few negs.

TerryThomasAtlanta said:
I'm curious because when a LasVegas photo lab closed up I purchased one of their 240mm f5.6 Componon enlarging lenses thinking some day I would have it adapted to a shutter

Mongo · Nov 11, 2005

You might as well give it a shot Terry...you don't need to put it into a shutter to try it out. Just get it mounted on a lens board and use a slow film in dim enough light that your exposure goes out to a few seconds, then use the lens cap or a black hat as your shutter. (Heck, make the lensboard out of cardboard...it only has to last long enough to get through the test.)

I shoot a lot of B&W in 8x10, and most of my lenses are process lenses made for similar uses as enlarging lenses. (I have a number of JML, Nikkor, and Eskafot-Ultragon process lenses, and every one is an excellent taking lens.) The negatives from these lenses are razor-sharp. It's generally expensive to get such lenses mounted into shutters (although I do use a Packard shutter to make using Bulb exposures easier), but if you use slow film and stop down, it's pretty easy to get an exposure in the 1/2 second or slower range and control the exposure by hand.

The worst that happens is that you waste a few sheets of film and a few hours. The best is that you find out that you've got a winning lens, and you can move on with whatever plans you have for it. I'm sure that SK Grimes could help you get it into a shutter.

I have a 135 f/5.6 Componon-S enlarging lens, but I've never tried to put it in front of the film as I have a number of lenses in that focal length range that are already in shutters. Although enlarging lenses are generally optimized for close work, many of them have been known to be good taking lenses as well. I think it would be worth your time to try this out...that lens that you have is not an inexpensive piece of glass and if it works it's likely to work well. (If you're shooting black and white, try at least one exposure through a colored filter. If chromatic abberations are the only thing wrong, you might find that an inexpensive yellow filter will make the lens into a winner.)

Best of luck to you. I wish I had personal experience with that lens to help you out.

Be well.
Dave

dphphoto · Nov 13, 2005

TerryThomasAtlanta said:
With the Rodagon throwing an image onto 4x5 what kind of sharpness resulted?

I'm curious because when a LasVegas photo lab closed up I purchased one of their 240mm f5.6 Componon enlarging lenses thinking some day I would have it adapted to a shutter.

But before I do am I wasting my money? One fellow reminded me this lens is formulated to take an image from a negative and throw it only a short distance to the enlarging paper.

When I'm using it, he said, the lens will not be "looking" at enlarging paper but subjects very far away or to infinity.

So he thinks sharpness will suffer.

Is he right? Did I waste my money on an enlarging lens thinking I could use it as I would a normal lens?

Thanks.

Terry Thomas
Atlanta, Georgia

When I was a large format newbee, I bought a 180mm Schneider Companon mounted in a Compur shutter. I simply didn't know any better. It gave perfectly sharp images, and I shot with it for almost 10 years.
As I remember, the sharpness with the rodagon wasn't bad at all. It was really kind of a neat effect. Maybe I should dig out the negatives and print one just to check. Dean

JohnArs · Nov 13, 2005

Hi Terry

It will be a winner in macro and stillife shoots also for portraits it will be killingly sharp if its not a lemon!

Mongo · Nov 13, 2005

As I mentioned Terry, a lot of my 8x10 lenses are process lenses, made basically for the same sort of distances that enlarging lenses are made for. I've had great luck with them...I think it's worth rigging up a temporary lensboard and shooting a few frames. I think you'll be fine. And even if it's not great at infinity, as John mentioned it'll be great for close up work.

xkaes · Jul 22, 2017

Of course it's been done, but why anyone would put a Mamiya 37mm on a Copal shutter (as suggested) since the Mamiya 37 has a BUILT-IN shutter, can only be explained by the idiot who came up with the idea. For more details, check out: www.subclub.org/fujinon/gonefishin.pdf

To answer the other naysayers, the results are SUPERB. The f4.5 aperture makes for easy focusing on the groundglass. The incredible DOF makes movements somewhat irrelevant, but not completely. The image circle barely fits in the 4x5 format, but since little additional extension is needed for close-focusing, you can usually stay within the frame.

Tomf2468 · Jul 22, 2017

You might want to take a look at my friend John's site. He adapted a 30MM Russian medium format lens to 4x5 for a circular fisheye. Go to http://www.siskinphoto.com/magazinearticles.php and click "Camera Building" to download the article.

bicycletricycle said:
has any one ever made a large format fisheye? What about adapting a medium format lense to a board with a roll film back? Would the effect of camera movements be noticeable? i guess the shutter would be the hard part, any way to find out the image circle of a medium format lense? probably 1mm bigger than it needs to be.

Dan Fromm · Jul 22, 2017

Joe, about using the lens, I b'lieve that there are now cocking lens mounts for RB/RZ lenses that can be attached to a lens board. Look into 'em, one would make y'r fisheye easier to use.

chassis · Jul 22, 2017

xkaes said:
Of course it's been done, but why anyone would put a Mamiya 37mm on a Copal shutter (as suggested) since the Mamiya 37 has a BUILT-IN shutter, can only be explained by the idiot who came up with the idea. For more details, check out: www.subclub.org/fujinon/gonefishin.pdf

To answer the other naysayers, the results are SUPERB. The f4.5 aperture makes for easy focusing on the groundglass. The incredible DOF makes movements somewhat irrelevant, but not completely. The image circle barely fits in the 4x5 format, but since little additional extension is needed for close-focusing, you can usually stay within the frame.

View attachment 183204

Cool rig! Any photos from that setup?

DREW WILEY · Jul 23, 2017

Hypergon lenses were extreme wide-angle but without the distortion of fisheye. They did have terrible falloff, so there was a little spinning fan in front of them which you twirled just before the shot. They protruded just like half a marble. But these tend to be expensive collector items.

fisheye for large format?

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