It looks better than the usual home-brewed workaround: adapting a fresnel lens and slide loupe to the standard viewing screen, something I'm strongly considering doing for my NEX-3. Apparently the display electronics for this next-gen NEX are accessible on the bus that provides the flash interface, which this device appears to be inserted into.

Here are a few other reasons why!



(C-mount no-name varifocal, Canon LTM 50mm f/1.5, Canon FD 28mm f/2.8, Astranar 400mm f/6.3, Nikkor 50mm f/1.4, Sigma 10-20mm for Canon EOS. all in their NEX adapters and ready to snap on.)

With the camera in Shutter Priority mode, you can live focus any lens stopped down. There are no electronics in the adapters, so no AF or auto aperture function--all manual. EOS lenses have no preview mode, so they operate wide open, but not a great loss for the excellent-wide-open Sigma. I have yet to do anything artful with these, but I am sure having a lot of fun getting use out of these oldies again!

Got it. Thanks!

My interest in classic photography has been rewakened by the purchase of a Sony NEX-3 body and adapters for my various legacy lenses. I've been anxiously testing out my Canon LTM set, and finding that they generally perform well (meaning in part that the adapter is of the correct offset for inifinity on all the lenses). But I was surprised to learn that one of my "pride and joy" lenses, a Canon 35mm f/1.5 (clean black and chrome gem) has a recessed lens barrel. To make the lens actually focus on infinity with the infinity lock set, I have to unscrew the threads by about a millimeter! Put another way, when screwed all the way into place in the adapter, I have to set the focus on about 5 feet before infinity even comes into focus. I can only guess that a previous CLA might have threaded the helical thread at the wrong starting point, but I wonder if there isn't a way to rotate the lens cell forward with the rest of the focusing gear still in place, since the RF cam is evidently in the right place?

The lens flange has three screws close together. When I remove these, I can rotate the front cell freely, although this does not change the offset, and it just makes the aperture scale unaligned with the focusig scale. Can anyone suggest what I need to do to actually coax the lens cell itself more forward? I can check the live focus in the Sony, of course, which was something I was never able to verify about the lens when it was on a film body--I just thought the focuser was off. So if I can rotate the guts, I can tweak out the infinity focus and then lock it all back up. Seems easy, but how to do it?

Thanks for any suggestions. I've been away much, and hope to stay more in touch.
--
Don

I'm going to do a Donald Qualls thing and suggest that in the best of all possible worlds, you could do this:

35mm unperforated portrait film is still available as bulk on eBay (Kodak, Konika, Fuji were common providers). A 100' roll of this would provide up to about 50 reloads at a length of about 18 shots per reload. If you twist a cartridge, you can generally pop all the glue joints cleanly so that the shell and spools are fully reusable.

Now for the paper part. If you depend on either counting your exposures or using a built in counter if available, you can put black tape over the frame counter window on the cartridge. This lets you use ordinary paper for the backing strip. Otherwise, you will need a light-impervious paper like the vaunted Exeter paper used for cartoon art animation backing. You would tape the spools to an appropriate length of the paper and make a fold to mark the taping joint (about 8" from the leading edge) before going into the dark and taping the unperforated film to this unpunched backing paper. The paper length should be another 2-3" past the end of the film length that you plan to use (about 1.5" per exposure plus another 2-3" for the taping/lead-out trailers). I can't find my old 126 papers to measure, but this formula should put you in the ballpark once you measure the actual gap between registration holes in the negatives or old paper.

The idea for fully compatible reloads is to rig a punch on a guide (presumably a board with guides on both sides) so that in the dark, you can lay your film/paper strip on the tray and position the taped joint about 3" past a punch. After making the first punch, you would pull the strip to the left about 1.5" (measure this by the gap between holes on a legacy 126 film strip or paper backing) where you would have glued a small tab to register the necessary offset. Continue punching holes through the length of the 18 or 24 exposure length of film and backing. Now you can blow off any dust and roll the combo back onto the supply spool, and drop the two spools into the cartridge and snap the back in place.  Use bits of tape to prevent unwanted opening of the unglued back!

If you have the right jig, the theory *should* work, and as I said, the cartridge will be fully compatible with unaltered 126 cameras (always my preference as a collector of fine original cameras), and will give you MORE than the original square frame width, since Kodak and other manufacturers usually pre-flashed a frame boundary onto the film.  I'll leave speculation about the jig to Dean and other mechanics on the list...

And an afterthought--the aforementioned portrait films are for standard C-41 processing. Your local 1-hour processor can return the shell and spools to you, or you can request the same for lab processing (be sure to mention C-41 processing and the parts return instructions, then cross your fingers).  My local one hour lab just closed. so the doors of opportunity are closing. Sigh.

It's an interesting film. Visually, I always thought the negatives looked flat, but my parent's old negatives have scanned beautifully.  It is a film I would have loved getting to know better.

This VP-620 negative was taken on a Kodak Six-20 folding camera (which I still have) near Monterrey, Mexico by my mother during WWII while her new husband was at Guadalcanal. I admire her eye for composition, and the film itself imparts an interesting texture that is unlike either Plus-X or Tri-X.

One of the links IN the article set up a "You need a virus scan" URL that was persistent; when I closed and restarted the browser, the rogue site returned.  In my Firefox profile, I removed the 6 or seven files that were the latest dated, reinstalled Firefox, and am back to normal, but that was a real annoyance (second only to the phone calls that start out, "This call is in regard to your credit card balance...").

If anyone knows of an easier recovery for those ingratiating sites that take over the browser, please let me know.

Granny is going to be so steamed that someone got her picture from behind while she was working on the flowerbed.

Nice save, Emir. I appreciate the tips and experience that you have shared.  I have a very old roll of 127 to work on sometime that is so dried out, the end shattered when I tried to spool it. It will take some special effort to save any of the remainder.

Which of these represents your thoughts? Thinker   I pictured #5 as being a possible interpretation...

Very nice BD portrait, by the way.

In that kind of heat, you might be milking yogurt instead of milk out of that goat.

Today's weather forecast in Austin is projected to hit 105 F.  This little guy seems resigned to wait it out the shade! Minutes ago from my kitchen window, Oly C-700 max telephoto:

Nice shot, and a nice promise of good things to come.

You know, those T and B shutter speeds are the hardest ones to verify as working properly. I mean, how do you every really KNOW that the B exposure was long enough? :rolleyes:

Claudia, very nice. It took awhile to see the froth in the one bottle--very unorthodox, and I like it!

Mike, all I can say is that this picture proves that absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.

Thanks for the kind words, Les. I only wish I were as deep as your insight presumes. But to carry the theme further, let's open things up and ask for more photos of eyes that "have it."  I'll even toss in a starter for the challenge, my own lovely Kathy back when my Canon FT/Ql was new:

That Google view is fascinating! In the original image, the engine is sitting on the main line, with siding on the right. A road appears to cross right where the engine is.  So if the Google coordinates are right, the very location could be looking east (to the right) along the main line, where Strawberry Ridge Road crosses the small siding just left of the A marker in the magnified satellite view. The trees in the image could be the small grove just north of the siding. If that is so, then the building is long since gone, but it seems the location is still identifiable! The newer power plant is to the left, behind the photographer's apparent viewpoint.

Time for some ground truth--signs of a building somewhere next to those long white trailers. Anyone live near this location?