[Thagomizer]

Cross posted from the Projector Lens Club.

First live fire excersize with one of my projector lenses. This one is the Paillard Bolex Hi-Fi 20mm F1.3. It's a lot brighter than many of my other homebrew macro kluges, but depth of field (f1.3!?) is even less than I'm used to. Very tricky to use. These are all hand held, with built in flash dialed down to 1/64 or 1/128 power. Used without any extension (apart from that provided by the rings, adapter and registration distance). With such a short focal length, it wouldn't take much extension to end up with the point of focus being inside the lens.
Am I right in guessing that a reversed lens would not suffer from this potential problem, that with any degree of extension, its point of focus will still be in front of the lens, not inside it? I've put a lot of extension behind my reversed Kinotel and Kinotar lenses and just got more magnification, with no "focusing inside the lens" issues.

Here's details of the the lens inscription (after addition of a stepping ring used for mounting):



And on the camera. 49mm reverse adapter and another stepping ring do the trick.



Some results. Floral:











Faunal:

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Last edited by Thagomizer; 09-12-2018 at 10:24 AM. Reason: fixing typos

[Thagomizer]

Haven't used my reversed 18-55 II for a while, so I took it for a walk this morning. Cross posted from "Show me your insects," "Spiders" and the "Kit Lens Club"

Got some shots of a large grasshopper that seemed unusually tolerant of my presence. On seeing the photos, I noticed it had quite a number of injuries to it's head and thorax. They show up as rusty brown marks.It looks like they might be healing.

.





Here's a long-jawed orb weaver (family Tetragnathidae) from this morning's shooting:

[Thagomizer]

For residents of Ontario, Canada:

Ontario Entomological Society's Bug Eye Photo Contest

Deadline is September 30th!

[MarkJerling]

Haven't used my reversed 18-55 II for a while, so I took it for a walk this morning. Cross posted from "Show me your insects," "Spiders" and the "Kit Lens Club"

Got some shots of a large grasshopper that seemed unusually tolerant of my presence. On seeing the photos, I noticed it had quite a number of injuries to it's head and thorax. They show up as rusty brown marks.It looks like they might be healing.

.





Here's a long-jawed orb weaver (family Tetragnathidae) from this morning's shooting:

Lovely shots!

[Thagomizer]

Lovely shots!

Thanks! I wonder how the full frame 15-30 would perform in reverse? Of course it's going to be a bit heavier...

On rereading my original post you quoted I see I used the wrong "it's" !!! (I hate when I do that).

[MarkJerling]

Thanks! I wonder how the full frame 15-30 would perform in reverse? Of course it's going to be a bit heavier...

On rereading my original post you quoted I see I used the wrong "it's" !!! (I hate when I do that).

If you did not point it out, I would not have noticed.

[xandos]

Haven't used my reversed 18-55 II for a while, so I took it for a walk this morning. Cross posted from "Show me your insects," "Spiders" and the "Kit Lens Club"
...

Great stuff! I especially like the first two!

[Thagomizer]

(Cross posted from "Show me your insects" and the "Kit Lens Club")

Woke up to a bit of snow on the ground yesterday morning. It melted away by afternoon, but it's a good sign that 2018's Outdoor Insect Season is about done. But Indoor Insect Season continues. Like last year, our front hallway is host to a bunch of a tiny, mysterious insect. Other bugs show seasonality, so why not this one, too? So once again I'm left pondering why they show up at this time of year, what are they eating, what else, if anything, do they grow into? Identification would be greatly appreciated!

Being the only show in town, the most accessible of the half dozen of them that have hatched, arrived, or whatever, got a lot of attention this afternoon from me and my K-S2. I used a combination of Kinotel 8mm movie camera lens reversed on extension and reversed 18-55 II, with and without extension. All handheld, with Pringles tin extender/diffuser on the built in flash. All images uncropped unless otherwise indicated.

Reversed Kinotel:




100% crop of the above:





Reversed 18-55 II





100% crop of the above:



Reversed 18-55 II on extension:





I look forward to seeing what these combinations will produce once I get my KP.

Here are some context shots with a ruler in centimetres for scale (DA 18-50 DC WR RE):

Two for the price of one!





100% crop of the above. Not bad for a kit lens!

[Doundounba]

Pentax-M 135mm F/3.5 plus coupled reverse Sigma 24-70mm zoom. Really like the flexibility of this combo for snowflake shots. 18 frames in this focus stack. (Reposted from K-3 Sample Shots.)

[Thagomizer]

Pentax-M 135mm F/3.5 plus coupled reverse Sigma 24-70mm zoom. Really like the flexibility of this combo for snowflake shots.

That sounds like an interesting combination. I've used reversed zooms on extension, but not on a prime. I've got a K 135 f3.5 and a Takumar (Bayonet) 135 f2.8. I'll have to try some of my kit zooms on them to see how they perform. I'll also have to try my hand at snowflakes now that bug season is over.

[Doundounba]

That sounds like an interesting combination. I've used reversed zooms on extension, but not on a prime. I've got a K 135 f3.5 and a Takumar (Bayonet) 135 f2.8. I'll have to try some of my kit zooms on them to see how they perform. I'll also have to try my hand at snowflakes now that bug season is over.

According to our very own Nass, the image quality of a coupled reverse lens setup is usually better than that of the same lens reversed on tubes, provided the primary (or relay) lens is of good quality. That being said, it's easy to run into diffraction softening, and I re-learn every year to follow his advice and shoot the primary fully open (or close to fully open)... I also find I get slightly better images if I reverse a 50mm prime on the 135mm than I get with the zoom reversed and set to 50mm. But it's just so convenient to be able to vary the magnification on the fly, especially for flakes where there can be such huge size differences in what is falling from the sky,

[Thagomizer]

Just picked up one of these Fotodiox PKAF lens to Nikon body mount adapters on an unexpected Amazon warehouse special (CDN$30.00 instead of the usual $52.00). Supposedly had a cosmetic blemish and damaged packaging, neither of which I could detect. I've already removed the optics (with just finger & thumb pressure to unscrew, no tools at all), as my main use for it will be to control the aperture on reversed Pentax mount lenses lacking aperture rings, like my 18-55 kit zoom and Sigma 10-20. Until now, I'd been jamming a piece of tubing cut from a coton swab to keep the aperture control lever from moving. This adapter should be a bit more refined, precise and controllable. I'll still be guessing at the actual aperture, but this will be a great step up from jammin'. I think it was a post somewhere here on the Forums that got me thinking in this direction to do this, but I can't find the relevant thread or the member who posted this idea to thank them. I think it's going to work very well.

Inspired by the "mounting Nikon lenses on Pentax bodies" threads, I'm also going to make a modification to the adapter, drilling a shallow opening on the Nikon mount side to accept the PK body lock pin so I can use it between body and PK lens as a very short extension tube for my Sigma 10-20. I know I won't have auto diaphragm, or aperture control through the body, or PTTL flash, but it's cheaper than buying a PK-A extension tube set and will be thinner than the thinnest tubes usually included in those sets. I'll post more (including photos of item, mods and examples of actual use) once I've gotten farther along with it. Should be fun! Stay tuned!

[VILLAINofOZ]

I have recently bought a Schneider enlarger lens on eBay for $20 (new condition in box) and ordered the 32.5*0.5 thread to m42 thread adapter.
I intend to use that on the far end of my m42 bellows with a 135mm attached to the camera and the front end of the bellows.
Does this sound correct? Or should I be putting a reversed lens on the end of the bellows and then the Schneider enlarger next effectively having 3 lenses?

[MarkJerling]

(Cross posted from "Show me your insects" and the "Kit Lens Club")

Woke up to a bit of snow on the ground yesterday morning. It melted away by afternoon, but it's a good sign that 2018's Outdoor Insect Season is about done. But Indoor Insect Season continues. Like last year, our front hallway is host to a bunch of a tiny, mysterious insect. Other bugs show seasonality, so why not this one, too? So once again I'm left pondering why they show up at this time of year, what are they eating, what else, if anything, do they grow into? Identification would be greatly appreciated!

Being the only show in town, the most accessible of the half dozen of them that have hatched, arrived, or whatever, got a lot of attention this afternoon from me and my K-S2. I used a combination of Kinotel 8mm movie camera lens reversed on extension and reversed 18-55 II, with and without extension. All handheld, with Pringles tin extender/diffuser on the built in flash. All images uncropped unless otherwise indicated.

Reversed Kinotel:




100% crop of the above:





Reversed 18-55 II





100% crop of the above:



Reversed 18-55 II on extension:





I look forward to seeing what these combinations will produce once I get my KP.

Here are some context shots with a ruler in centimetres for scale (DA 18-50 DC WR RE):

Two for the price of one!





100% crop of the above. Not bad for a kit lens!

Very nicely done!

[Thagomizer]

Thanks!