The Weird and Unusual Lens You Put on Your Leica or RF

<p>What sort of off-beat lenses have you put on your Leica LTM, M or R or your non-Leica rangefinders? This includes not only adapters but also lens alterations (or camera alterations). Here is my latest novelty below, shot with an Olympus E-PL1s + Summicron DR 50/2:</p><div></div>

<p>Gee, I'd rather put that lens on my Pentax LX, and use my CV 15mm on the rangefinder...</p>

<p>I have used it on my LX. You get full frame digital with the M9. The CV 15/4.5 is good little lens. The Pentax is one stop faster and has built in filters. It also has an excellent depth of field scale and it is a stellar performer. The trade off is, of course, size and weight.</p>

<p>So far, only the Fed 61 ld f/2 m42 but when I feel flush enough to buy the adapter, I'd like to try my Takumar m42 1.4</p>

<p>I bought a Leica IIIc (ca 1947) back 3 years ago with as the seller described it, "with some kind of a Japanese lens". I seized the opportunity to own a Leica with a Konica 50mm f1.9 LTM lens made in the 1950's. It was offered as an option on a Leica copy named Honor. Herein is the image in "honor" of this lens. I've used the lens and may be one of the sharpest lenses that I own(along with a Dual Range Summicron on a Leica M-3). By the way the Leica needed shutter tape reset, so a CLA solved the problem. My next task is to have the beam splitter replaced as my technician now offers that service. Had he been able to do that back at the time of the CLA, it would now not be needed.</p><div></div>

<p>I posted a picture of this arrangement several years ago along with several shots taken with it. It turns the Leica M into an AF zoom camera. Yes you heard me. The Tamron 70-210 IF AF had its autofocus mechanism and battery holder built entirely into the lens body, so it operated independent of whatever camera body it was attached to. I attached it to an Adaptall II Leica R mount, which then attached to an R to M lens adapter. Since there is no viewfinder and you can't see thru the lens, I found that the M body's viewfinder patch closely approximated the field at 210mm, and the 90 or 135mm frame lines more or less took care of the short to intermediate ends of the zoom range.</p><div></div>

<p>Not the weirdest, as it shares the same bloodline, but a nickel Elmar 1932 Barnack period lens on a 2012 (2009) M9, demonstrating the utility of an uncoated 70 year old lens, and providing a onetime Leica look.</p><div></div>

<p>I have a homemade "lens" which is just a single element mounted on a body cap:<br>

<img src="http://www.jonasyip.com/photonet/m9-fuzzy-lens.jpg" alt="" /><br>

(Actually it's Nikon mount, so on the M9 I use a Nikon-LM adapter)<br>

Here's what it does:</p>

<p><img src="http://www.jonasyip.com/photonet/m9-fuzzy-nyc.jpg" alt="" width="532" height="800" /></p>

Why spoil such a beautiful body with such horribly ugly lenses?!?

<p>I mentioned in another thread about using enlarger lenses on a Visoflex for macro shots. Here's one taken with a 50mm Schneider Componon. Focus was by moving the camera.</p><div></div>

<p>Jonas, I like the effect of your homemade lens.</p>

<p>Excellent picture Jonas! <br />Hopefully now prices of Leica lenses will drop ;)</p>

<p>Thanks Jim and Maciek. Too bad the lens is apparently too ugly and spoils the beautiful camera body and so I'm not supposed to use it any more ;-)</p>

Those that forget that Leicas are tools are destined to become tools. ;-)

 

 

Seriously, though, I would like to know more about how you created your lens.

<p>I have a whole pile of homemade lenses. Basically anytime there's a lens element lying around, like a magnifying glass for example, I'll hold it up to my camera with no lens on and see if it casts a useable image on the viewing screen. This would be with an SLR of course, not the Leica. After that it's just a matter of hacking together the right extension tubes or cardboard tubes or whatever to hold the lens in the right place. I usually drill out a body cap to hold the element itself, though one of my most used lenses uses a web of electrical tape... talk about ugly! No aperture control and it's fixed focus or minimal focus control (the electrical tape one lets me "focus" a little by pushing the lens in or out). I've found that small diameter lens elements (like 1-inch or less) seem to cast a focused image very close to the camera, so I don't need a huge tube.</p>

<p>Anyway, I have fun with it.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I think it's great you are playing like that!</p>

<p>Just got a Canon FD 17/4 and put it on my M9 via adapter !</p><div></div>

<p>I have that Pentax lens from my ME system. It was my first rectilinear ultra-wide. And you know what? It's better on the ME system. On the Leica and RD-1s, it can't beat the 12 and 15mm VC Heliars for either sharpness or compactness. </p>