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09-29-2009, 09:27 AM   #31
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That BW with runners have a very nice tonality!
I've been drolling over some Yashica, and Contax lenses that should be "adaptable", just waiting for a chance to grap some for a low enough price.

About the Hexanon lenses and macro applications: Since it is so easy to make a adapter/tube with a K mount on the camera side and a AR mount on the lens side...you don't need to get the 55mm macro (even if that is a very nice lens and to my oppinion better than both the Takumar/Pentax 50/4 macro's and the micro-Nikkor 50 I worked with during my military service), but you can grap more common lenses extremely sheap:

-Hexanon AR 50/1.7 (the most common normal lens for many years, there is a 1.8 also which is OK, but not as good as the 1.7, this lens is comparable to the SMC Pentax-M or A 50/1.7)

-Hexanon AR 28/3.5 (the SMC Pentax 28/3.5 is sharper, but the Hexanon is not far behind...it is better than the M 28/3.5) - this one makes an excellent macro lens in reverse position on a tube or bellows...and this lens is actually more common than any of the Hexanon 50's, 52's, 57's, and 58's (yes they made many normal lenses), because there were not that many 28 versions (a rare 28/2 also), so they goes for almost nothing.

-Hexanon AR 40/1.8 (the sharpest pancake 40 there ever was...yes I have the SMC Pentax-M 40/2.8 pancake also, and I recon that if the DA40ltd migth be slightly improved, it wont beat the Hexanon 40/1.8 which is sharp all the way from the start...and was really sold as the normal lens on all Konica cameras for almost a decade, after the 50/1.7, so they are plentyfull and dirt sheap...the 4/3rd people hack them now to get sheap 80mm/1.8 equivalents)

I'll try to shoot something macro with each of these lenses for this thread.

Many of the Hexanon lenses were produced in a time when Pentax took most of the top positions in lens tests due to the advantage they had with the SMC before other lens builders developed their own (almost) as good multi-coatings...but looking in lens ratings from the 70's you will find that right behind Pentax/Takumar is not Canon, Nikon or even Leica, but the Konica Hexanons. Such a pity they stopped building SLRs and went into that useless merge with Minolta.

10-01-2009, 12:59 PM   #32
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I have been making slow but steady progress adapting my Illford Monobar to take the DSLR body. Not wanting to do anything permanent to it I have started making a whole new rear standard for the digital camera so that it rotates round the centre of the sensor; no re-focussing (at least not much hopefully) between swing / tilt adjustments. I was thinking of making the camera mount a T mount as it will then take any film / digital SLR without further alterations. This may get put to one side for a bit now though as I have just obtained a Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 shift lens for conversion so can try some perspective controle quite quickly and easily easily with this.

The Contax Zeiss macro conversion has proved highly worthwhile, although I removed the A pin and have been using it as an M lens. This lens has a bit of element separation in the rear lens group but it it still sharper and more contrasty in most situations that almost anything else I have. I got a quite to hae it fized but at $300 I can't justify it at the moment. A couple of recent shots with it are shown bellow. Arachnophobia sufferers look away now!


User Photo Gallery - Macro


User Photo Gallery - Macro
10-11-2009, 09:49 AM   #33
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When i'm trying to figure out if a lens can be converted to K mount the first thing to check is the flange focal / registration distance. So far I have always used wikipedia which has a reasonably comprehensive list (Lens mount - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) but there are definately a few mounts missing. However I just found a more comprehensive list here: mounts.htm I hope everyone else finds this as usefull as I have.
10-11-2009, 10:16 AM   #34
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QuoteOriginally posted by MattGunn Quote
I have been making slow but steady progress adapting my Illford Monobar to take the DSLR body. Not wanting to do anything permanent to it I have started making a whole new rear standard for the digital camera so that it rotates round the centre of the sensor; no re-focussing (at least not much hopefully) between swing / tilt adjustments. I was thinking of making the camera mount a T mount as it will then take any film / digital SLR without further alterations. This may get put to one side for a bit now though as I have just obtained a Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 shift lens for conversion so can try some perspective controle quite quickly and easily easily with this.

The Contax Zeiss macro conversion has proved highly worthwhile, although I removed the A pin and have been using it as an M lens. This lens has a bit of element separation in the rear lens group but it it still sharper and more contrasty in most situations that almost anything else I have. I got a quite to hae it fized but at $300 I can't justify it at the moment. A couple of recent shots with it are shown bellow. Arachnophobia sufferers look away now!


User Photo Gallery - Macro


User Photo Gallery - Macro
That's an impressive spider-shot!
Do you have a pic of the lens?

QuoteOriginally posted by MattGunn Quote
When i'm trying to figure out if a lens can be converted to K mount the first thing to check is the flange focal / registration distance. So far I have always used wikipedia which has a reasonably comprehensive list (Lens mount - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) but there are definately a few mounts missing. However I just found a more comprehensive list here: mounts.htm I hope everyone else finds this as usefull as I have.
That's a good link, had it among my bookmarks also, but thanks for posting.



There are sets for converting Topcon lenses to m42 mount on ebay (despite that the registration distance is shorter). From m42 it will be easy to go to K mount. Have anyone here tried them?

Next question. Exakta bayonett is the same as the Topcon bayonett, right? But the reason why the Topcon converstion appears to work is that the bayonett piece is the same size on all lenses (?), but on the very many Exakta lenses there appear to be a lot of variation on how the bayonett part looks like (thickness, screws etc). Have anyone used the Topcon conversion set for an Exakta lens? Or converted an Exakta to m42 or K mount in another way?

10-12-2009, 04:31 AM   #35
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QuoteOriginally posted by Douglas_of_Sweden Quote
That's an impressive spider-shot!
Do you have a pic of the lens?
Thanks, I am very pleased with the second one, this lens is impressively sharp.
The contax macro is anything but "macro" - it it huge for a 60mm lens. Bellow are a couple of pictures showing it in focussed to infinity and at closest focus, with a Super Tackumar 50mm f/1.4 for an idea of scale. The last picture shows the separation of the rear doublet . In spite of this it workes well, especially stopped down as it always is for macro shots. Wide open the contrast suffers a bit but it is still very sharp.
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Last edited by MattGunn; 10-12-2009 at 11:16 AM.
12-05-2009, 12:56 PM   #36
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As I have now completed the conversion of the Ilford Monobar I have now gone back to converting another lens. The Monobar converdion was described in its own thread (Here: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/80872-ilford-m...onversion.html) but since it was mentioned in this thread a photo of the completed camera is shown bellow. I'm not sure if this counts as an impossible lens, camera or bellows convesion, but it was fun to do and will be fun to play with when the weather improves.



The latest conversion is a Vivitar 55mm f/2.8 macro, originally in Konica AR mount. I know that this lens is available in K mount but I got it so cheep that I though it was worth a try in spite of the potential difficulties of acheiving infinity focus from a mount with a registration distance 4.8mm shorter than K mount.

The conversion involved dismantling the lens, removing about 4mm of metal from the back of the lens mount and the aperture ring, machining a new recess into the back for bits of the aperture mechanism, drilling and tapping new holes and fitting a flanged M42 adapter. So that I didn't have to stop the lens down before taking a picture I made and fitted a new aperture actuating lever so the lens workes as an M lens as the original K mount version did. It also reaches infinity focus.

As with previous conversions, I had a go at making it an A lens as can be seen from the photo. Unlike most of the previous lenses, in this one the aperture mechanism provides a linear change in aperture area with lever movement so I was hopefull it would be more sucessfull than previous attempts. However the aperture lever movement of the K AR lenses is greater that K mount. At the wide end it was OK but at the smallest aperture the exposure was almost 3 stops too high so I took the A pin out again and now just use it as am M lens. I haven't tested it much yet but it is another impressively sharp lens. A photo of the converted mount is shown bellow.
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12-05-2009, 02:02 PM   #37
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Very impressive work on the modification. Is this the 55mm macro that goes to 1:1 on it's own or the 1:2? I had the 1:2 version branded as Soligor in M42 and it was a very nice lens. I sold it to finance Soligor 2.8/90 Macro (1:1) (also Komine) which I sold to finance the Vivitar 2.8/100mm Macro (same as Kiron and Series 1 macro).

Does it count as LBA if you sell to buy more?

12-06-2009, 05:07 AM   #38
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Its the 1:1 version. Its quite big and heavy for a 55mm lens but it is exceptionally sharp.
The picture bellow was about 1:2 magnification, f/5.6.
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12-08-2009, 05:31 PM   #39
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I had a Pentacon with a ruined M42 mount... just converted it to a K bayonet mount with some success... I'll try shooting in the next days but apparently it keeps the infinity focus. Not really a fantastically useful conversion since I could have used an M42 adapter, however the screw mount had been tampered with on this copy of the Pentacon/Lydith so I just used parts from a dead & cheap K-mount 135mm lens to screw a K bayonet on the Pentacon. Looks cool to me
Some pics of the mount conversion stages on my blog
01-01-2010, 12:18 PM   #40
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I took the converted Vivitar macro out for a play today, a wonderfull hard frost over everything demanded some close attention. The following shot is a crop taken hand held at 1/60 sec, approx f/4-5.6, iso 400 no PP.


User Photo Gallery - Macro

I am working on another Impossible lens at the moment, this one has a registration distance of 57cm so plenty of room for an adaption but it needs a focus mechanism. The lens is a 36"(914mm) f/6.3 arial survaylence lens. It is shown bellow with a Super Takumar 50mm f/1.4 for an idea of scale. I hope to have it mounted and start testing in the next couple of weeks so more to come...
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01-01-2010, 02:42 PM   #41
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That's a big lens. Where did you find it? What are the numbers on the side? They look like a focusing scale.
01-01-2010, 04:57 PM   #42
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QuoteOriginally posted by ovim Quote
What are the numbers on the side? They look like a focusing scale.
Those would be the aperture. f/6.3, f/8, f/11, f/16.
01-01-2010, 05:52 PM   #43
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That surveillance lens looks like it will be entertaining to work with. Are you looking to build a rail and bellows system to focus it or something more ambitious?

Any idea how large a negative the lens was it intended to cover?
01-02-2010, 03:57 AM - 1 Like   #44
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QuoteOriginally posted by ovim Quote
That's a big lens. Where did you find it? What are the numbers on the side? They look like a focusing scale.
As wallyb said the numbers are the aperture settings. It has been sitting in a cupboard at work for about 30 years collecting dust so I thought I would see what it can do.

QuoteOriginally posted by Steinback Quote
That surveillance lens looks like it will be entertaining to work with. Are you looking to build a rail and bellows system to focus it or something more ambitious?

Any idea how large a negative the lens was it intended to cover?
Im using an old bellows as the focus mechanism. I have adapted an old minolta one I picked up. This has about 95mm of focus travel so the completed lens should focus down to about 9m. I am in the process of building up a tube from an old plastic shell transport case and glasfiber. In spite of the realtively light composite lens shell it will still be heavy as the lens elements waigh a lot more than the 3kg my kitchen scalles will register.

I don't know what negative size it will cover but it is a least 5x4". On APSC I shouldn't experience any vignetting...
On the other hand, due to the fact that large format negatives are not intended to be enlarged as much as 35mm the resolution requirements were lower so I don't know what the IQ will be like. I hope to see how it performs soon though.
01-02-2010, 12:23 PM   #45
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Some of you will have seen this before, but here's something an old bellows can do:



This is an old screwmount bellows with a cheap M42/K adapter on the back, (the flanged kind, no infinity focus worries here) and an M42-M39 adapter on the front, to fit this old 30's Tessar or any of my enlarging lenses. I've made photos with this, though none particularly fun, yet. (I need to add a short extension tube to the back of the bellows so I won't have to remove my battery grip every time I want to fit this up: it'll still work just fine, though. Once I do that, I'll probably play with it more. )
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