Adapting 35mm film P&S lenses to M4/3

[bobatkins]

<p>I've been thinking about adapting lenses from old 35mm film P&S cameras to M4/3. A lot of the old film based P&S cameras gave decent results and were pretty thin. The distance from the lens to the film was short, maybe 25mm or so, but that's fine for M4/3 which has a back flange distance of around 20mm I think.</p>

<p>I'm thinking of a lens like the 35/2.8 used on the Olympus XA for example. It's way, WAY, smaller than any other decent quality 35mm focal length lens, it is optically good and it has more than enough coverage for M4/3. I'm sure there are other such cameras with a single focal length lens. The Yashica T4 comes to mind, as well as the Olympus Stylus</p>

<p>Obviously the trick is (a) getting the lens assembly out of the P&S, (b) figuring out a focus mechanism, © opening up any "between the elements" shutter and (d) if possible controlling the iris, though that's not a huge deal. I can live with a fixed aperture f2.8 or f3.5 lens.</p>

<p>None of these are impossible, though I suspect that iris control could be tricky. Once the lens is prepared, attaching it to some commercially available modified M4/3 adapter would be easy. It could just be glued into one if necessary.</p>

<p>My questions are (1) does anyone know of any documentation from anyone else who has tried this and (2) Can anything think of a reason why this wouldn't work? The main concern might be that the lens wouldn't be telecentric (one of the features that Olympus claims for their lenses) and that might lower image quality. However most adapted lenses aren't telecentric either so maybe it's a non-issue.</p>

<p>I tried a Google search but either there's nothing out there or I didn't use the right search terms. Lots of stuff on adapting SLR lenses. That's easy.</p>

<p>The object is to minimize the size of the camera+lens combination of course. Suggestions of which cameras might make suitable donors would also be welcome (along with offers of dead ones to experiment with!). </p>

[paul_wheatland]

<p>The easiest way to use odd lenses is an adapter of your choice coupled to a bellows for focusing purposes and any lens out there including a plus ten diopter for Diana-Holga type photography. It's my theory that using a P&S lens requires inordinate calculation and extensive labor to put it all together. Whatever you decide, good luck and have fun!</p>

[bobatkins]

<p>Since my goal is minimum size, lenses with bellows isn't going to work. Might as well just stick an SLR on there. I've got lots of old SLR lenses and adapters which work fine, but aren't exactly small.</p>

<p>Once the lens is extracted from the P&S, it shouldn't be a whole lot of work to mount. Not much calculation needed since focus can easily be tested and adjusted by "trial and error".</p>

<p>In theory lenses from old 110 format film ameras should have enough coverage for the 4/3 sensor, but it's getting hard to find 110 film cameras these days plus I'm not sure if any of them had decent lenses.</p>

[Dieter Schaefer]

<p>Wouldn't the interchangeable lenses from the Pentax Auto 110 be the easiest ones to try this out with? That was an SLR though, so the lenses may not be as small as you like them to be.</p>

[Dieter Schaefer]

<p>Might also be useful to look for those P&S cameras that had lenses that needed to be manually focused - Rollei 35 and the Minox 35 series come to mind - very decent glass too. Can't recall any others - but am sure there were more.</p>

[tommyinca]

<p>May be harder to find and is kinda pricee, check out the Olympus Pen-F 38mm f2.8 pencake. The adpater is almost bigger then the lens. But then it would have been be too easy. </p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>I use a Fotodiox adapter that allows me to use my Nikon lenses on an Olympus E-PL1 M4/3. It was 30-40 dollars, I forget. I use the same adapter with my Nikon 50mm f/2 and with other lenses that fit my Nikkormat. Fotodios has adapters for all lens and m4/3's so check their web page. There are other manufacturers as wel. Nothing special.</p>

[bob_king2]

<p>A friend of mine wanted to adapt his medium format Contax lenses to his EOS DSLRs. He did it by cutting a neat hole in a body cap to fit the lens - he said it worked well. You may be able to do the same with m4/3 and making it permanent by gluing the lens to the cap.</p>

<p>Cheers, Bob</p>

[claudinho]

<p>You can check this link and contact the guy. He uses NEX cameras but maybe has already made the experiment. Type "glue" in the search box.<br>

http://oldlenses.blogspot.com/</p>

 

[Alex_Es]

<p>Bob, if you can find them, try old Pentax 110 lenses. They are tiny and have only one f-stop (2.8). Adapters are readily available. </p>

[paul_wheatland]

<p>If I were to take a lens fixed to a 35mm, I'd choose Skopar by Voigtlander as the shutter is behind the rear group which frankly sloves some issues. The Skopars are fantastic but may not be faster than f2.8 or f3.5...........try a Vito B or Vito II hopefully a donor carcass because of shutter/ advance, bad bellows or missing parts issues as long as the helix, iris, and optics are complete and working. The lens assembly is tiny so it complies with your aim.</p>

[harold_gough]

<p>Just to confirm that the flange to sensor distance of m4/3 is precisedly 20mm. Apart from C-Mount and Sony E-mount, just about all other candidate lenses have a longer flange to sensor distance. I don't know where P&S fit in here.</p>

[jcuknz]

<p>There are the CS mount lenses designed for the Reflex Bolex H16 [H16R] which from memory have an 18mm mounting distance. Some folk on the Olympus M4/3 forum are using them I believe though it maybe just non-reflex lenses. Alex Shishin ?<br>

However I cannot give you a link to the lens mount site as my old computer with those favourites recently crashed :-(</p>

[bobatkins]

<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I have adapted an 80mm f3.5 Yashicor lens to the Pen. Works fine, though it's not as good as my old (and very cheap) Russian Jupiter 85/2.0, and since it makes a fairly long lens it's really not worth the effort! The lens was from an old Yashica TLR and has a helical focusing mount which made it an easy adaptation. I just used some old Pentax M42 extension tubes to get the lens to sensor distance right.</p>

<p>I have a couple of very small 35mm f5.6 lenses from an old Nimslo 3D camera. Since they had 1/2 frame coverage, they should be OK on the Pen. Don't suppose image quality will be that great (I think they are triplets), but they are very small indeed. Haven't yet quite figured out how to mount one in a focusing mount though.</p>

<p>The Pentax 110 lenses are probably the easiest way to go, though not especially cheap once you add in an adapter to M4/3. The 70mm might make a nice, small telephoto though.</p>

<p>The Vito lenses sound interesting if I ever come across a dead camera with one. Thanks for the tip.</p>

<p>So far the most interesting lenses I've adapted to the Pen have been an 8mm Peleng fisheye and a 57mm f1.2 Konica, though neither qualify as "small". The Pentax 55/2.0 is also very good (and sharp wide open).</p>

<p>What I'd really like would be something small and in the 10-12mm range. Something like the Olympus 12/2.0, but costing about $650 less! It's a pity that most of the C-mount lenses don't have enough coverage for M4/3</p>

[patrick j dempsey]

<p>Please don't hack up an XA for this experiment. ;)</p>

<p>While the M43 may look small compared to most SLR's the film to lens distance is dramatically larger for it than most PNS cameras... the XA's rear element almost touches the film itself! For something with a decent thickness you need to look at 60's and 70's pre-XA rangefinders but the lenses on those are largely massive comparatively. Almost all RF lenses are shutter-in-lens... leaf shutters have many advantages over an SLR shutter not only in cost, weight, complexity and the ability to sync flash at all speeds. Of the more compact examples, many had an "electric eye" metering system on the lens that directly attached to the aperture and only a very rare few had manual aperture control. Virtually all of these had all kinds of mechanical interconnects with the body.<br /><br />What *would* work great for this is the lenses from the 1930's through 1950's 35mm folders and rangefinders with Compur or Prontor shutters. These have several key features:<br>

1. Focus on the end of the lens... in other words the lens stays always at a fixed length so can possibly be attached directly to a body-cap.<br>

2. Shutter is self-contained with few if any linkages and can usually be rigged or forced to stay open.<br>

3. Mechanical aperture that will always work and always be accurate to the lens.<br>

4. Standard triplet optics are quite sharp in the center and are only really fuzzy on the corners which are completely lost on this much smaller format.<br>

5. Size 0 shutters are very small... these are what you usually see mounted in the front of low-speed Rolleicords.<br /><br />These are commonly found on folding cameras but also on fixed rangefinders from the 1950's. For smaller sizes and more compact arrangements, don't got for the 2.8... look for 5.6 or 3.5 lenses. Be warned that the later 50's fixed-lens models may be more complex to dismantle than they appear and be much larger in real-life than they look in photos.</p>

[bobatkins]

<p>I know some P&S lenses have an element (usually a large rectangular rear element) that's only a few mm from the film plane, but I didn't think the XA was one of them. I measured the distance from the film plane to the back of the lens of an XA2 and it looks like about 17.5mm. That should be easy to fit on an M4/3 body with a 20mm flange to focal plane distance. The protrusion of the lens (which is about 16mm in diameter including the mount) only 2.5mm into the M4/3 body shouldn't be an issue. C-Mount lenses protrude into the body at least that much. As long as you don't go in far enough to contact the shutter, you're OK.</p>

<p>The older folders might work OK. The only ones I've played with are medium format and their lenses are a bit long for this application. I'd like to find something short. Don't know if those old folders ever came with lenses of 35mm focal length or shorter. The XA series cameras mostly have 35mm lenses (6 elements in the XA, 4 in the XA2 and XA3) except for the XA4 which has a 5 element 28mm lens. That would be an interesting one to try if I ever find a dead XA4 at a bargain price.</p>

<p>The trouble with the XA series cameras is that I think they are somewhat "collectible", which means that unless you find one at a flea market or garage sale, they're not cheap.</p>

[nathan_bonsal]

<p>The Olympus XA is such an excellent film camera that it would be a genuine shame to carve it up unless the film advance or shutter is utterly hosed. It is also an exceptionally poor candidate for micro four thirds adaptation due to the fact that the lens is held together by parts of the body itself, and is not a singularly removable item. Remember that not only do you have to hold the elements the right distance from the sensor, but the right distance from each other. The XA will make that difficult.</p>

 

[bobatkins]

<p>I agree. I wouldn't try a lens transplant unless I found an otherwise unusable XA series camera. The XA lens would need some engineering to mount it, but I can handle that. Since the XA series cameras have either 35mm or 28mm lenses it may not be worth it anyway since they are not particularly interesting focal lengths for the M4/3 format.</p>

<p>I have built an ex-Nimslo 30/5.6 lens into a focusing M4/3 mount. Very compact indeed and works quite well. Of course 30mm f5.6 isn't very exciting. I did it more to see if I could do it then from a specific need for a 30/5.6 lens. The focusing mount was built from a 10mm M42 extension tube bonded to an M4/3 body cap. The optics can be replaced if I find a more interesting lens to use.</p>

[alan_ginman]

<p>The master at this sort of thing is John Evans. He's a UK based photographer who has stuck every lens imaginable to every camera imaginable. He has released an ebook which explains some of the adaptations he has made. It is stunningly good value for money. The link below it to a UK based site, but you can probably find the book in the US.<br>

Cheers</p>

<p>Alan<br>

<a href="http://www.srb-griturn.com/exploring-simple-lenses-815-p.asp">http://www.srb-griturn.com/exploring-simple-lenses-815-p.asp</a></p>

[phil_phil]

<p>Hello all (new here),<br>

I was considering the same modification but with a Nex 5N. Could be a fun project. But I have mixed feeling about preserving the XA. Yes it is a nice camera but the truth is that my XA has been in my basement or in a box for the past 8 years and that it seems unlikely I will ever use it anymore... But just holding it... Well anyways. I got it out and checked the service manual. Blocking the shutter seems doable.<br>

The Nex has a 18mm flange to sensor. A distance of 17.5 for the Xa is mentionned earlier. How did you measure it? <br>

Any advices would be welcome...<br>

Thanks<br>

PS: Considering also a used broken Zeiss Ikon S310 that I may buy this week-end.</p>