Utilizing the full coverage of 35mm lenses

So sometimes when I'm bored I take my lenses and hold them next to the wall and project an image of my room on the wall. Do this with a 35mm lens (format, not focal length) and you realize how much coverage these lenses have that we don't use. Granted it's probably less well corrected in the outer reaches, but still, it would be cool to utilize it.

One idea was to somehow mount it on a MF camera and record the whole image circle of 120 film. However, is there a MF camera out there that would have a short enough focal flange distance to achieve this? Me thinks not.

What about modifying a SLR or rangefinder? One could cut out all baffles and either modify the winding distance or just shoot one shot w/ a lens cap on and wind it twice as far. You could get a panoramic format this way.

I don't know; call it pointlesss, silly, fool hardy, daydreaming, wasting time at work, BUT I WANT TO DO IT! Or at the very least, see it.

I can do that with my Quarter plate camera, just need to rig a shutter

But I have a few candidates.

Ian

I did that kind of thing in the past, but didn't find the coverage that much greater...
Certainly not enough to tempt me to try to adapt those lenses to a 6x6 SLR.

It would be easiest on a large format camera. And you're right, the periphery won't be very well corrected at all. In many cases coverage is just a little larger than what is required for a 24x36mm frame.

how about building a camera obscura with the room? create a mount out of a thin board and place it in the window. Black out the reset of the room and mount the film/paper on the other side of the wall. create a shutter of somekind and see what you can do. I have always wanted to try as a pin hole but have not had the right view or the rooms were too big. I know someone who did something similar with a hatchback car.

From what I remember, it seemed to be about a 2 inch diameter circle. I'll check again and I'd be curious if it varies depending on the focal length.

Yeah, shutters are the trick. Not being well corrected might be kind of cool; an interesting portrait lens or something.

As for mounting it on an LF camera, I fear that the flange focal distance couldn't be short enough.

And on the topic of camera obscura, I did that in my darkroom by cutting a circle out of foil tape that I had used to black out the windows. It was awesome, and great for long exposure pictures inside the room. However, not sure what this has to do with any lenses

I have thought of a similar project. Putting C-mount and D-mount cine lenses on some Leica adapter to use on a Zorki or other inexpensive focal plane 35mm camera. To get a circular wide angle image. (focal length 5.5mm to 25mm)

A while back, for totally different reasons, I cobbled up a Canon FD mount for my 4x5 camera - it was pretty heavily recessed to get the flange distance correct. I used the base of an existing recessed lens board along with a big PVC plumbing pipe cap and some miscellaneous hardware...



For a shutter I used the lens cap! (Obviously stopping down a lot to get the exposure times out to where that was possible.)

Some results...with the to-scale 35mm image frame superimposed...

24/1.4 Aspherical:




24/2.8:




85/1.2 Aspherical:




200/2.8:




As you can see, not a whole bunch of extra image circle to work with... and my recollection was the edges were more of a mess wide open but to really test that I'd need to get a proper shutter involved somehow. It was my intent to do this for all my FD lenses but there are so many of them, and this was a fair bit of work, and I wasn't really sure what the point was once I'd seen the results of the first few. But if someone wants to see the results from some other FD lenses that I have (which is most of them) I still have the rig and would be happy to give it a shot.

For anyone else that wants to try this, say with some other brand of lens, you just need to get a disassemble-able recessed lensboard (a lot of them seem to be this way so you can switch between recessed or protruding), an appropriately-sized PVC pipe cap, and a spare lens mount. I got my lens mount by finding a wrecked T-50 for $5 on That Auction Site and taking it apart. Your mileage may vary on other brands, but this was pretty straightforward on a Canon.

Duncan

holmburgers said:

And on the topic of camera obscura, I did that in my darkroom by cutting a circle out of foil tape that I had used to black out the windows. It was awesome, and great for long exposure pictures inside the room. However, not sure what this has to do with any lenses

Click to expand...

I was thinking of using the lens instead of just a hole.

I've fancied this myself.
Does anyone know which 35mm lenses have extra coverage?
Anything that covers a little more than a 35mm neg could be useful.
35mm pano, 645, 6x6, all of which would be fun to mess with.

For the lens mount, just use a 5mm extention ring or adapter.. no need to canibalize a camera.

darinwc said:

For the lens mount, just use a 5mm extention ring or adapter.. no need to canibalize a camera.

Click to expand...

In my case, a parts camera was much cheaper than a 5mm extension ring! As a bonus, it already comes with mounting holes in a flange

Duncan

I never tested it but I'm pretty sure my 35mm f/2.8 PC Nikkor has a larger image circle than my 35mm f/2 Nikkor O. If you like to use more of the image circle, why not make round prints?

All of the PC lenses will have more coverage im sure, but the price is prohibitive.

Very cool examples. The lenses definitely get wooly on the edges, but still interesting. I hadn't considered a recessed lens board to overcome the focal-flange-distnace.... DUH!