Where to buy glass or plastic elements if you want to make your own lens?

darkosaric · Jun 1, 2019

Hi all,

Where to buy glass or plastic elements if you want to make your own lens?
When I will be bored at night, to make some "Miroslav Tichý" lenses, and to attach them with a duct tape on Rolleiflex SL66 or something similar that has bellow.

Thanks!

McFortner · Jun 1, 2019

You can try Surplus Shed.

https://www.surplusshed.com/

Mackinaw · Jun 1, 2019

Try Edmund Optics:

https://www.edmundoptics.com/c/optics/602/

AgX · Jun 1, 2019

There are various sources and prices vary.

The cheaper way to get even better lenses is using close-up lenses. They got rather long local lengths, but instead you can built an optical system, by that reducing effective focal length.

darkosaric · Jun 1, 2019

Yes, I would not like to spend a fortune for something that will probably be failed experiment. But close ups are a good tip, I see them often in flea markets.

narsuitus · Jun 1, 2019

Also consider making a "pinhole lens."

jim10219 · Jun 1, 2019

Surplus Shed has good prices on quality lenses. I've bought several from them in the past. You can also pull them out of old lenses. Find a cheap long focal length zoom lens and you'll have a bunch!

darkosaric · Jun 1, 2019

Yep, flea market will be, I will buy couple of old zoom and close ups, disassemble it, then I will see what I have that looks like this:

joking, joking of course .

jim10219 · Jun 1, 2019

That lens might be a life long project. But I did pull a single meniscus lens out of an old 75-230mm zoom lens that covered a 4x5 negative with ease. The problem was, it had a 14" focal length, and my Speed Graphic (my only LF with a focal plane shutter) wouldn't extend that long. Luckily it did have another achromatic doublet inside with about a 50mm focal length that worked pretty well as a macro lens on a 135 with bellows, though it did need a Waterhouse stop to make it useful.

AgX · Jun 2, 2019

jim10219 said:
You can also pull them out of old lenses. Find a cheap long focal length zoom lens and you'll have a bunch!

Yes, I bought a whole bunch of various 80-200mm lenses for 1€ each, to train disassembling, for the tiny screws and maybe the lens elements. Still on stock...
The advantage of close-up lenses is that at least in theory one can get several at identical outer diameter, which benefits mounting.

Nodda Duma · Jun 2, 2019

jim10219 said:
That lens might be a life long project. But I did pull a single meniscus lens out of an old 75-230mm zoom lens that covered a 4x5 negative with ease. The problem was, it had a 14" focal length, and my Speed Graphic (my only LF with a focal plane shutter) wouldn't extend that long. Luckily it did have another achromatic doublet inside with about a 50mm focal length that worked pretty well as a macro lens on a 135 with bellows, though it did need a Waterhouse stop to make it useful.

If you combine that lens with a second thin lens with focal length between 18” to 35”, then you’ll end up with a lens with overall focal length between roughly 8” and 10”. Set the distance between them for best image correction.

jim10219 · Jun 2, 2019

Nodda Duma said:
If you combine that lens with a second thin lens with focal length between 18” to 35”, then you’ll end up with a lens with overall focal length between roughly 8” and 10”. Set the distance between them for best image correction.

True, but then I'd need to build a barrel (I literally just cut a hole in some cardboard and used that as a lensboard to mount it). I also thought about using it in my Sinar which has plenty of bellows extension and exposing slower paper negatives with it. And I might get around to that some day. Though to be honest, I disassembled that lens to use the barrel in another project (a camera lamp), so I wasn't really looking to use the lens elements for anything. It was just a nifty bonus, kind of like all of the tiny screws I pulled out of it, which I often need and can be hard to find.

Nodda Duma · Jun 2, 2019

You don't need to be fancy. Wrap them in black construction paper.

removed account4 · Jun 2, 2019

darkosaric said:
Yep, flea market will be, I will buy couple of old zoom and close ups, disassemble it, then I will see what I have that looks like this:

View attachment 224577

joking, joking of course .

you are close
you can buy old junk folders and box cameras and take the lenses off of them
sometimes they are meniscus sometimes more "complex" just unscrew the elements
and use the glass, i do that all the time and use black cardboard instead of construction paper for my barrels

AgX · Jun 2, 2019

But the latter would add a magic shine. Especially if that paper is bearing the design of some Leitz lens...

Where to buy glass or plastic elements if you want to make your own lens?

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