ethan_sprague Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 Good day. I shoot 3 1/4" x 4 1/4" polaroid peel apart film.A friend is building a camera for me. But I need a "Bad" lens for it.It wouldn't necessarily need to "cover" the whole film, just most of it.What I need is a bad lens that will give me-Vignetting, soft focus, and flare are what I am after.A lens with no coating would be a plus. If you can think of one that comes withhelicoid focusing, I'd be your best friend forever!Thanks very much, and yes, I am serious.best,ethan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob fowler Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 With or without shutter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ethan_sprague Posted October 22, 2003 Author Share Posted October 22, 2003 sorry- yes, WITH shutter. thanks so much, ethan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob fowler Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 I can fatten you up with the "bad half" of a 180mm f/4.5 Mamiya-Sekor TLR lens in a Seikosha shutter. The "good half" is now on my Miniature Speed Graphic, but the "bad half" (complete with some scratches and minor fungus) is waiting for you! :-) It's not a helicoid focusing lens though. The good news is that it covers 6X9 very well and will "almost" cover your 3X4 format. If it's "bad" you want... Email me at fowler@verizon.net and we can work out the details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_cook1 Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 The late Sid Avery, one of Hollywood's great advertising photographers of the 50's, 60's and 70's had a home-made monstrosity for his Nikon F constructed of cheap parts from Edmund Scientific. It was his own concoction of single uncoated lenses in a helical mount. Just a reminder that they continue to have all sorts of goodies useful to photographers with a fertile imagination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james_driscoll2 Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 I went through the same faze...and a little word from the wise...every lens I tried (80 year old single coated scratched to all hell glass for under $30) gave me such quality I was floored!!!! my advice to you is to seek out a fungus ridden (jungle like) scratched lens that was meant for some eastern block/russian 6x6 camera. I have come across lenses such as 80mm lenses for a Graflex Norita that was submerged for 3 days in the 1992 Noreaster storm. That was one f*cked lens. Still focused though... Call all of the used photo stores....they always have stuff like that rotting around in the basement....or rot your own cheap lenses out....spray matting spray on them and throw sand on them...the possibilities are endless if you can stomach them!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim_galli4 Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 I have a little lens in shutter that says KODAL No. 1. It's just a hole in the front and 2 element lens in the back. Well I got to playing with it and that 2 glass group will drop right into a Copal 0 shutter and when you put it out front it just makes the prettiest sharp in the middle and increasingly diffused picture you ever saw. It focuses at about 4" and covers my 5X7 easily. <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2959223552">Here's</a> one on this thing I think. Hard to tell in the pic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen hazelton Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 Check magnifying glasses out at the local discount store- including any in the "toy" aisle. Can you duct tape (just kidding) one of these to an existing shutter? Other sources: Slide projectors. Old Polaroid cameras. Both available CHEAP whenever you find them at Goodwill or garage sales. Try a condensor out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnanian Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 hi ethan check out some of the folding cameras being sold on FEEbay. you can pick them up for almost nothing, and pull the *shuttered lens* off. they are sometimes single cell meniscus and other things often in premo and similar shutters. also check out view camera from about a year ago. a guy named john siskin makes his own lenses and was featured in the mag. from what i can remember he gets all his optical supplies from anchor optical? a subsidiary of edmond scientific ... good luck! -john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fred_de_van Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 You can find 75mm 1.9 instrument lenses on the ebay nightmare for less than 20 bucks with a shutter. GranView.com may be willing to sell you a helicoid focus mount for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_jordan5 Posted October 23, 2003 Share Posted October 23, 2003 Ethan, I haven't experimented with intentionally "bad" lenses before, but it occurs to me that you might get some nicely bad results by stacking a few trashed old clear filters on an otherwise good lens. Maybe smear one filter with oily grime, scratch another one really badly, and add another couple for good measure and some vignetting. This might give you some control too-- you could mix and match depending on just how bad you wanted the effect to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bernhard Posted October 23, 2003 Share Posted October 23, 2003 Check this out: http://marktucker.com/plungercam/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.w. Posted October 23, 2003 Share Posted October 23, 2003 Ethan, a few years ago I did a photo essay on local movie theatres that were going out of business. I used a homemade (black matte board) lens board, fitted with a credit-card sized fresnel magnifying glass. It has a 3-1/4" f.l.; stopped down to 1/4" with a hole punch in black paper gave f/13. This lens gives a very vignetted, out-of-focus-edge, coma-distorted image, but very intriguing none the less. Your problem will be the shutter. I was using the curtain shutter in my Speed Graphic, which worked well. You could try some neutral density filters to increase the required exposure times so that the 'old hat trick' lens cap shutter method would work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob fowler Posted October 23, 2003 Share Posted October 23, 2003 OK, it's NOT large format, but in the interest of cobbling stuff together... I used a +10 close-up lens on a bellows to shoot this 20 something years ago. A +10 lens has a focal length of 100mm, and the setup I was using worked out to be f/2.8. Ya gotta love the aberrations!<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jochen_S Posted October 23, 2003 Share Posted October 23, 2003 An other chance: Take some shuttered standard lens and find some optician to mount you -4 or -6 glass upon it to get a telephoto lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richsbv Posted October 23, 2003 Share Posted October 23, 2003 You could also try the book "Primitive Photography" by Greene which has a lot of info on building your own lenses and cameras. Interesting reading if nothing else... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smieglitz Posted October 23, 2003 Share Posted October 23, 2003 Buy a Holga (~ $15) and cannabalize the cheapo lens and shutter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
julian_thomas Posted October 24, 2003 Share Posted October 24, 2003 Just a follow up on the holga idea; www.holgamods.com sells the lenses on their own and he has mounted one on a 4x5 graphic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darin_cozine Posted October 24, 2003 Share Posted October 24, 2003 Why dont you check out dagor77's auctions on ebay.. he has lot of industrial lenses, some of which he markets as 'turn your 8x10 into a holga' I think most of those are oscilloscope lenses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_rankin2 Posted October 24, 2003 Share Posted October 24, 2003 Well, I have a couple of dozen old 'bad' lenses, and they really aren't bad at all. I think your best bet would be to get some old cheap brass lens, then pick up a lens called 'Adon' to add to it. Dallmeyer made the Adon to turn a regular lens into a telephoto and it also gives interesting vignetting, etc. I use it to get an entire image circle on an 8x10 sheet of film, i.e., the whole scene is vignetted. Anyway, they show up on Ebay regularly and any of the bigger old lens dealers in the UK would have one. The Holga idea is also a possibility, but then, you might as well save the $20 and make your own plastic lens... Cheers, Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_scarpitti Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 You may want to get a magnifying glass which has a single lement of course and try it out. You'll have to jerry-rig the shutter and aperture. Single element lenses could be just the tiicket! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim_galli4 Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 Ethan, the obvious and cheapest is no lens at all. Take an insulin syringe and punch a hole through a piece of foil and make a pinhole camera. That's how <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2944365554">these</a> images were made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicholas_lindan Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 I have had success removing the back element from a triplet/tessar or symetrical lens such as an angulon, rectilinear, sironar. For a helicoid get a busted 135mm t-mount (<$5) and remove the focusing mechanism. Why not consider a bellows: rip the front off of a Polaroid 80 ... In 35mm a close-up lens taped to a close-up bellows works quite well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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