EFS Junk Macro for Scarlet Pimpernel

This Scarlet Pimpernel photo was taken by a broken Canon

EFS 18~55mm lens.   How it was made broken, I don’t know, neither

the shop staff who gave it to me did.     Despite its front element was

missing, I had a hunch, this lens works. (Above photo / at 55mm, F4)

In order to mount the lens onto 5D body and test, I needed to

cut off the protruded lens tail. (photo right)

Amazingly, the lens worked —(obviously except autofocus.)

(Still able to give a focus confirmation on manual setting !)

And on AV setting, F-aperture worked perfect and the

exposure was correct !    Without front element, the lens can still

give pretty good macro image from 1/1 at 24mm to x1.7 at 55mm.

(Though, with dreadful distortion — Don’t ask too much.  😀 )

This image was made on 55mm setting with F-11 /AV.

And this one was, at 23mm setting, F-11 / AV on Canon 5D Mk-III.

—– considering it was a cheap kit lens, broken and came free,

= it wasn’t too bad was it ?    Canon is making pretty good product.

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(Above is the original size and its part enlargement of the top photo)

(Showed sharp detail though the depth of field is very shallow)

PS :  To the untrained eyes, the photos above seems to be unsharp.

So, I show you a photo of a Butterfly Wing and its cropped,

enlarged images, taken by this broken EFS Zoom lens at 55mm F11.

(Photo above = at 55mm setting, F11 — X1.7 magnification)

(Center part enlarged photo of above picture)

— is it sharp enough ? 

(don’t forget, this is not even a macro lens.)   😀

(Of course, if a junk lens could show the same quality, how

the Leica’s Macro Elmar or Zeiss’ Macro Sonner could

justify their price !

—– and, we can’t talk the price of the mass-produced kit

lens and the lens hand-made for few hundred scientists

on the same basis.)

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Beaulieu 8mm Cine Camera

— (Beaulieu 2008s / my Homemade lens on a Nikon to C adapter attached. 

— And the contact pin of the battery was connected to the 4AA cell battery)

One of the regular attendance of the WW Greenwich (SPC.org),

Gordon used be a busy cinematographer, even worked for Japanese

NHK before.    Naturally, he got many  professional cine camera but

all of them are film camera. —– and, he got stock-pile of such

as the Kodak Super 8mm Film even now. 

So, he wanted to create something fancy footage using even fancier

100 years old Lens. 

A French Beaulieu was a well-known cine camera manufacturer

together with, Arriflex, Bolex, Michell etc.    And one of his camera

Beaulieu 2008s is a servo-controled Super 8 cine camera —– though,

electric camera needs a power, but this camera’s (made 1968) special

battery is dead. —– So, he needed my help. 

The information through the Net, < say yes to analog ! >,

I found this camera’s motor has a feed-back generator and

a symmetrically powered Servo-amp = It’s needs + 0 – power,

hence 3 contacts in the battery chamber. (photo above left) 

I tested the camera while connecting the battery just by the

3 crocodile cables. = It’s worked perfect. (after 20~30 years ? !) 

When we deal with this kind of project, we need to see what IS

the main priority ? — To maintain the originality of the “antique”

— or just get a function. 

Neither Gordon or me got a romantic dream to the antic camera

but see it just as a tool. = So, I told him “Just have a 4AA cell

external battery case and connect it by 3 cables soldered to the

contact in the battery chamber”. (forget the nice appearance.  😀 )

So, the battery (as they can be accommodated in the camera’s

battery chamber = Photo above middle) was half sticking out

of the camera, — still, this was the easiest adaptation.

= As long as it is fit to the purpose, just use it. Why not ?

So, Gordon is going to have a test shoot with 100 years old

Ensign Anastigmat Lens ! — Though, now-a-day, to have

a 8mm cine film processed and digitized etc is an awkward,

expensive and time-consuming business = I can not promise

when I can report and show the results here.

Good luck Gordon.

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Funki Porcini @ NFT

Last night my friend, multi talented (video, music) artist,

Funki Porcini showed his new works at the National Film

Theater, Southbank, London.

First, B/W film was shown, which was a re-discovered, revived silent

Soviet-Russian film titled “My Grandmother” —–Funki put the

sound (today’s housy sounds) and made the film even more crazy.  😀

And showed some of his work, then the latest one

“Conservative Apocalypse”  (you better watch it)

He reviled some secrets behind, on frame by frame.

The end of the show, with a big applause, he was surrounded

by the audiences, or the questions, then we moved to the bar.

—– then I realized it was almost midnight.   Still it was quite

a worthwhile mind-boggling evening.

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Ensign Lens Portraits

At WW gathering in Greenwich, while testing Ensign’s Anastigmat

lens on Gordon’s 8mm cine camera, I did some portraits shots

of the people there.

100-year-old lens was stuck on a bellows, on Canon 5D Mk-III.

(150mm F7.7 lens, focusing on a bellows wasn’t very easy)

— still, the camera like this makes the people smile.

Mike and John

James, Gordon and Paul

Mike, Albert and Roman

The hands (what else ?) 

Those pictures were the clopped cemter image of the 3″x4″ of

the image size, the quality was good. (Just like most of the lens)

(But as the image of this lens was too ordinary, it has no point to

chose this lens while an ordinary lens gives full auto and F2.8. 

😀 )

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The same Meadow by 2 Element Toy Lens

Somewhat the same kind of photos again.

But with 2 Element Toy camera Lens.

This lens can make a bit more detailed image than Gaudy Lens.   🙂

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It’s the Gaudy Lens

I developped 10s of devices/lenses to obtain painting like fuzzy effect

— and so far this gaudy lens seemed to be the best device for the job.

No filter or attachment available on the market  nor digital

manipuration can make the same effect.

(simplly nobody else needed => no manifacturer wanted to make)

So, I’m enjoying a dance alone in the middle of nowhere.   😀

The best things of this gaudy lens is, its balance of fuzzyness

and the ability to retain a certain details of the image.

(In fact, I can controle it by the size of paper hole/iris and

the amount of over-exposure/halation = so, it is not

like a wild animal of DD-Pinhole)  Ha ha ha  😀

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Meadow by Twisted Lens

This was the first field test of the so-called

Twisted Lens = Two convex lenses stacked on a bellows.

As the lens was on a bellows they were easily

re-positioned = so, the effect of blur was adjusted.

As the lens was on the bellows, they were rather awkward

to use, nevertheless it managed to produce the photos.

You might wonder why I fuss about such fuzzy images =

The reason is, in our eyes we may not seeing sharp clear

images — they might be the brain re-constructed image.

(Remember, we never see straight line with rownd eye balls

— straight line IS the re-construction in the brain) 

That’s why we are surprised and impressed by the sharp

clear photos, same as when we see a detailed close-up

photo of an insect which we can’t see otherwise.

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Twisted Lens

Lens in the optical devices must be placed exactly parallel and

having its axis in the dead center. —– That was what I thought.

But the photo above may demonstrate otherwise.

It was taken by the casually improvised 2 convex lens = one was

the rear element of Canon EF Zoom 28~70 and the other —–

thin convex lens from  somewhere.  And those lenses were

temporally stacked on front of bellows on DSLR body.  I expected

to see rather blurred poor image though, much of my surprise,

even annoyance, that lens produced pretty decent image.

= They were 2 convex lenses = even not an achromatic

convex-concave structure, still shows no chromatic aberration.

It’s not fare !  Why cheap junk couldn’t produce junk image ?

So, I mounted those two lenses in angle = say one lens got

its top downward and the other was its bottom upward. 

(Ref; center of collage photo bellow)

Front lens was off the axis 15° and the other (inside) was 10°.

Though, the image was NOT destroyed. (Like a photo above)

The image here was almost intentionally created blurred

image made by the Twisted lens mounted on a bellows.

The photo here gave rather requisite over soft image.  😀

The photo above left is the same “Test shot”

Center photo shows how the Lens were mounted.

Now you must be convinced that the myth of precise

engineering of optics may not necessary be true.  

(That’s the reason how manufacturer produce flimsy

plastic zoom lens without showing any hesitation.)

 

PS :     Later, I noticed that the rear element of

Canon Zoom showed 3 internal reflection and

a Newton-ring = they are the indication of that

the optics was the 2 element construction =

convex and concave lenses stacked together =

achromatic design.

(= that’s why the images had no chromatic aberration)

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Yashica-Kyocera Macro (2)

Those two photos were the x6 shot of the Butterfly Wing.

As I described in the old post I made this lens last November

— and now, it is the time to take it out or find a good subject

to shoot on a table top.

Any how, it was a broken 38~115 mm Zoom Film camera of

Yashica-Kyocera.

To disassemble the camera is a brain game = Which screw,

where to start is quite crucial to have an easy game though,

even if you were completely wrong and made a mess, not much

damage would be done, nothing to lose but a bit of Ego.  😀

What I did with this camera was, taking out the optical unit

from the lens barrel and re-mounted it up-side-down

(front side back) to the same barrel.

(= Camera lens was designed to give the best performance

when the front was focused to the infinity, and the image

was closely projected to its back.

It’s mean, if the back of the lens was closely aimed to the subject,

the front side will make a big enlarged image. 

= this exactly what the macro photography is.)

The lens barrel was glued onto a Contax-Canon mount adapter

to be used on the Canon DSLR.

And this (improvised) macro lens gives x1.7~x3.6 magnification.

(with a farther 44mm extension it gives x6 magnification !)

—– considering its cost virtually nothing, the performance isn’t too bad.

— though, with a test shot of yet again the egg of

Green lacewings which showed Chromatic Aberration,it was

found to be not as good as Chinese cheap Microscope Lens.

(which was designed for macro work))

—– incidentally, I’m very much puzzled by this Egg —

(1) Why so many of them were found in my room = Why

the insect prefer to came and lay the eggs here.

The larvae of Green lacewings  eats Aphis kind, it’s mean

they should have chosen such kind of environment.

(2) When this egg was laid — last year ?     If so, why I didn’t

see it till yesterday = it was on my desk, very front of my eyes.

(Photo above were x2 and x6 magnification)

Taking closeup photo of rather unwilling wasp

wasn’t very easy.  🙂

(With the enlargement, flaw of the lens such as a

Chromatic aberration, became appearent.)

 

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Moving or shaking

To create focus-shift soft image, it is nesessary to

use a slow shutter speed = in consequence, pictures

easily get bluured —– don’t worry, bluured or

shaky picture is still the pictures.  😀

Photo above = I like this painting like effect.

Anyhow, I know, nobody would complain. 

In fact, to anybody, it’s not a matter at all.  

Ha ha ha   😀

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