I've only recently made the jump from chemistry/darkroom photography to digital and I'm struggling with getting
results I want. I used to spend the day in the darkroom tweaking chemistry to get the look I wanted. Now that I
have a digital camera, I'm trying to get that look with the optics, not the chemistry. This shot is from my K-30 using a
Pro Master loupe as a lens. It's the look I want, but because it is a loupe it magnifies. What I really want is to widen
the angle, the loupe is a 3.5X, which narrows the field too much. I need something wider. I bought an inexpensive
converter that widens it a bit, but it's simply not enough. I tried attaching a wide angle converter, but it still didn't
widen the view enough. I'd like something that captures something like a 28mm lens
on 35mm camera...but how? I can't use a standard wide angle lens because I want to maintain the very
shallow depth of field the loupe creates. Any help?

Thx

[dms]

It is the nature of dslr that the smaller format means greater depth of field--although judging from the portrait (which is lovely) it is also lens aberrations that you like--which are a characteristic of a single element (lens). Anyway I suggest you go back to film (medium/large format will give you shallow depth of field) and then have film scanned, and then do your digital darkroom work.

[scratchpaddy]

I love experimenting with optics like this! But, if I understand what you're saying, you wouldn't be able to do that on an SLR. You're talking a lens with a focal length of 18mm, which would have to be 18mm from your camera's sensor to work. The camera mount is already 46mm from the sensor, so the lens would have to be inside the camera, right where the mirror is.

You'd need a retrofocus group to get wide angle like this, and if you're working with that kind of complexity, you might as well just get a real camera lens and "break" it somehow to get the look you want.

[Jessesdad]

Lens baby maybe?