Wide Angle/ Telephoto with Afocal Attacment lens.

[MTC Photography]

On alternative to using binocular for telephotography

[MTC Photography]

<h2><font color="red"> Minox 8x11 with Wide Angle /Telephoto Afocal Attachment Lens</font></h2><P>In the 50s of last century, wide angle and telephoto attacment lenses were quite common for 8mm movie cameras. A 3 position turret with blank hole, a 06.x wide angle and 1.7 x tele was mounted in front of the lens. By turning the turret, one could choose normal, wide angle or telephoto.

The tele photo attacment was a Galilean telescope with small magnification factor,

and the wide angle lens was a inverse Galilean.

<p> Rolleiflex made wide angle and tele mutars for its TLR cameras.

<p> Zeiss Ikon also made an afocal attachment for its Contaflex I and II SLR, used with aperture stop down.

The Zeiss Ikon Contaflex Teleskop was big and clumsy. Later Zeiss Ikon abandoned the Teleskop attachment

idea for later Contaflex models B/BC/SUPER B, and replaced it with Zeiss Pro-Tessar

convertible lens: the front element must be removed, then attach the

wide angle or telephot Pro-Tessar. Kodak Retina had similar convertible lenses.

<p> This afocal attachment technique migrated to subminiature cameras in the 60s to 70s. For example Gami camera had 4x and 8x tele, and Rollei 16/16S had 0.6x mutar (wide angle ) and 1.7x mutar (tele)

<p> In the early 80s, when P&S camera first came out, there were third party

wide angle and telephoto attacment lenses made for

Canon and Nikon fix focus P&S cameras. <p> Kodak also made a tele attachment lens for

its disc camera.

<p> Later due to the advance in zoom lens technique, these attacmenet lenses disappeared.

<p> There was no such wide angle /tele attacment made for Minox.

<p> However, with a binocular attachment, one can attach one of these wide/tele attachment len to Minox 8x11 cameras

and take wide angle photo or telephoto. With a 0.6x attachment, the focal length of Minox becomes 9mm, with a 1.7x attachment

Minox lens becomes 25mm lens. Gami tele lenses and Rollei mutars are high quality attachment lenses.

<p> When use, set Minox lens at infinity for distant object. It is possible to take picture with object other than at infinity, but then focusing becomes more complex, and it depends not only on the magnification of afocal lens, but also on the separation between afocal lens with camera lens.

[jeff_drew3]

What a great idea, Martin. The experimentation factors are almost

limitless with this. What do you think about trying a quality

enlarging lens? Size is nice and used wide open, should be a nice

flat field of view?

[MTC Photography]

Jeff, the Minox "binocular" adapter is a very versatile device. You can attach it binocular, microscope, telephoto attachment, wide angle attachment, and all kind of lenses.

<p> Attaching an enlarging lens to Minox is useful for taking macro photography of small objects, such a stamp, a coin etc.

<p> How to use enlarging lens or projector lens with Minox was covered in the thread:

<p><a href="http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000tlH">Macro Photography with Minox</a>