Vivitar ultra wide lens on a D700?

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<p>I've seen some conversions where people have stuck the lens from a Holga onto a Nikon lens cap/body cap set-up but has anyone tried to take the lens from the Ultra Wide and do something similar with it? The 22mm lens is (sort of) designed for full frame 35mm and I think it would be more interesting than the Holga conversion. The problem might be the short lens to film plane distance. Maybe some has worked around this problem before?</p>

[frank_skomial]

<p>"Maybe some has worked around this problem before?" - Yes, Vivitar, Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, and others they do make lenses for Nikon mount.</p>

<p>If you have a machine shop, you could possibly machine off the extra distance and the other mount, and fit a thread and use a T-Mount for Nikon. Not recommended.</p>

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<p>Frank,<br>

What I had in mind was removing the lens unit from the Vivitar, cutting a hole in a Nikon body cap, sinking the lens unit into it and then attaching the body cap to the D700. Having checked out the D700, I think there might be enough wiggle room to attach the lens to the rear of the body cap (avoiding contact with the mirror), bringing it closer to the sensor. Whether it would be close enough to enable the unit to focus other than at close distances I don't know. Looks like I'll have to give it a go myself!</p>

[frank_skomial]

<p>All Nikon DSLR cameras have the same lens mount flange to sensor distance, and D700 does not have any more "wiggle room" than any other. Quite contrary, due to large mirror needed for FX size sensor, D700 gives you less chance to fit an other brand 35 mm camera lens than D70, D40, and any other small sensor cameras.</p>

<p>While Holga, (I believe? - never had one), is a medium format camera and has much longer distance needed from flange to sensor, all other 35 mm cameras lensess may not be suitable for Nikon.</p>

<p>Canon is known to have longer lens mount distance from the mount flange to sensor, and Nikkor lenses work OK mounted on Canon cameras with suitable adapter, but not the other way around.</p>

<p>You are on a way to ruin a $3000 camera, perhaps. So I would try it first on a cheap used camera. Perhaps you could get a used or damaged camera for few $$? and try it if manual focusing distances would work ?</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>I think your problem will be the mirror. it will hit the lens.</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>Ultrawides for SLR camera are retrofocus design, meaning that even if a lens has a focal length of say, 15mm, the distance from the rear element to the film plane will be much greater. To best understand how retrofocus works, try looking through binoculars backwards. A retrofocus wide angle is a bit like "backwards binoculars. Because the 22mm lens is designed for a non-SLR system, it is not retrofocus.</p>

[mfophotos]

<p>Hell, you have a D700 -- buy a Vivitar 19mm lens for Nikon mount.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>or a 16mm Zenitar</p>