sexgun

You can get a lot of information, as well as spare parts, from this site: Tiltall Tripod Support. Much more useful than the company that now produces the tripods named Tiltalls. I have three old Tiltalls, one each from Marchioni, Leitz and Star D. Just from eyeballing them, it seems that the Marchioni-made one used beefier parts than the Leitz, at least the part around the collar that the legs attach to - not that there's anything flimsy about the latter. So Leitz was a downgrade :).

I second Ed_Ingold's recommendation of the RRS Arca Swiss plate. I've got one with a 3/8" screw on my Hasselblad body and wouldn't want to use anything else.

"Crop factor" of approximately 1.5 when using traditional medium-format lenses on the X1D, assuming you can put up with the tactical problems of leaf shutter, stopping down, etc. This can still be quite useful to someone with a collection of V lenses. Unknown factor: how wide angle lenses would image around the edges of the sensor; probably not too badly, until the dream of a 56mmx56mm sensor comes around. Another fantasy: a Metabones Speed Booster for the X1D :).

Thank you for the information!

Hello, everyone. I wish to mount 39mm-thread enlarging lenses to my M-mount bellows but can't recall what Leica called that adapter disc. Can someone please tell me? Thank you in advance, and happy shooting!

Hello all, I got an unbelievable deal on a Super Wide C and am trying to furnish it with basic accessories. I know virtually nothing about Hasselblads or any cameras for film larger than 35mm, so please bear with me. First thing, I would like a haze/UV filter to protect the front of the lens, and it needs to be a series VIII, or 63 in Hasselblad terminology. I'm aware that I'll need a Hasselblad-made filter so that the two glass surfaces will not touch. I'm looking at the lens and it seems to me that there is a filter retaining ring on it already. I'm attaching a picture of my camera and one of a ring I found on keh.com. However, the ring on my lens does not budge when I try to loosen it by hand. Is it a good idea to use a filter clamp to turn it? I'll be asking Mr. Odess to overhaul the whole thing, so no big deal, but my curiosity is getting the better of me :).

<p>Yep, I figured it wouldn't be able to stop the lens down. I had one of those plastic things, but it got lost.</p>

<p>Hello, I'm in the mood to try some wide angle macro shots with my FD 17mm lens which, unlike earlier breech-lock lenses, does not have a lever for locking down the aperture. The old Canon M5 is apparently the thinnest ring available, perhaps the thinnest one ever made for a 35mm camera. I've never handled any of the FD extension rings, so my question is, will the M5 enable me to stop down the aperture? Thanks for your help!</p>

<p>A little nitpicking first, the 8mm is a fisheye, not an ultrawide lens :). I have one, but I use it on a Sony mirrorless body, and I like it. The build quality is good and so is the picture quality - as long as you close the aperture down at least one stop! Wide open, your pictures will look fuzzy, as if everything is wrapped in alpaca sweaters.</p>

<p>I like the Action Finders for the Nikon F and F2 that give an experience similar to looking at a small TV, and making the camera bodies more dangerous as tools for splitting wood - and heads. The downside is the added weight on top. The equivalent accessory for the Canon F-1, called the Sports Finder, adds the capability for waist-level viewing through an ingenious mechanism that allows it to be swung up 90 degrees. </p>

<p>I agree with Don Bright: "Retro or not, I don't see what the looks of a camera has to do with making good pictures. If it were the reality, old beat up, tarnished camera's would make, beat up, tarnished rotten pictures, and that the better looking camera, subjective, would be making beautiful pictures." Furthermore, I'm reminded of the old advice that if you go to buy an old guitar, beware if it's in mint condition. That may mean that someone did not like playing it, and you may be better off with an old, beat up guitar that got played every night. Haha.</p>

<p>Actually, the 35mm and 80mm lenses can give decent results "in the air." My Nikonos with the 35mm F2.5 lens was useful for many years as a weatherproof camera. That lens supposedly shared the same optical design as the one for Nikon rangefinder cameras, as well the Nikon series E optic.</p>

<p>Rodeo Joe is right. You should start with a camera with a shorter distance from the lens to the film plane. If you want to stick with 35mm film, something like a Bessa L would be fine. It has the lens register of a Leica screw mount camera, about 28mm or so, much shallower than a Nikon SLR's. It's got a mechanical shutter, so you can keep the shutter open for as long as necessary without using up any batteries. It's a very stripped down camera body, so you don't pay for any luxuries like a viewfinder, autofocus mechanism, motor drive, etc. It's of recent manufacture, and it's cheap. Good luck!</p>

<p>The Sony NEX series, with that 18mm lens register, seems to be more suited to the use of FD lenses. And sooner or later, there's bound to be a full-frame NEX. That will be the answer to FD lens owners' wishes.</p>

<p>Hah, many non-AI are still going strong. I had a prong put on my 75-150mm zoom just so I could meter at full aperture on non-AI cameras.</p>

<p>Don't do it, it's the road to ruin; you won't be able to stop until you get all of them including the F6!<br /> But seriously, you should get either an F or F2. Don't be afraid to get one with one of the metering finders at first, even if you should eventually acquire a plain prism finder too, just for the experience of using a really timeless classic. There are repair shops that can fix the meters and, in the case of the Photomic F, adjust them to use 1.5v silver cells (Camera Clinic in Seattle, Essex in New Jersey, Pete Smith in Florida, 'Mr. F2' Sover Wong in the UK, etc.). My two 1970s "Apollo" F's have meter heads that were cleaned and recalibrated about 10 years ago, and both work fine today; one of them even runs an F36 motor from 1959! Some of those repairmen are quite ingenious; as an example, they now have brass gears to replace the plastic gears that came in the motor drives. That's a great thing about old Nikons; there were so many sold that there are more people alive who know how to fix them, and there are plenty of camera bodies to cannibalize for parts. Another joy, or curse rather, of owning old Nikons is being to pick up all kinds of arcane and esoteric accessories, from dozens of focusing screens to strange gizmos for anything from astrophotography to photomicrography. Happy shooting!</p>

<p>If you don't need the special features of the PB-4, you can also look for old bellows with an M39 thread in front and an F mount in the rear. There's a Novoflex set which I purchased for $25, about the cost of a simple adapter ring, and this setup allows me to focus to infinity with the EL 105mm.<br /><img src="http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww23/lanmtu/novoflex.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Sorry for the belated response, I haven't logged onto PN for a while...You should just search for something like "m39 Nikon adapter."</p>

<p>The PB-4 has a female F mount in front. The 105mm EL has a Leica-thread 39mm on its rear.<br /> If you wish to mount it unreversed, you can get an adapter that allows attaching Leica-thread (M39) lenses onto a Nikon F mount. There probably are many generic third-party adapters that you can get for $15-20 that will do this. If you wish to mount the lens in reverse position, you can use the same adapter in combination with a conversion ring that Nikon used to make that had a male 40.5mm thread on one side and a male M39 thread on the other. That's because the EL lens has a negative 40.5mm filter thread at its nose. I remember buying just such a ring from B&H several years ago.<br /> Or, more simply, you can drill a 39mm hole in the center of a body cap and secure the enlarging lens (in unreversed position) to it, then mount that on the front of the bellows. You would need an easily-obtainable 39mm retaining ring to do this; some people might just epoxy the lens to the body cap :).<br /> I'm not familiar with the PB-4, but, with bellows that are short enough when they are compressed, you can actually focus from macro distances to infinity with that 105mm lens, again with the lens unreversed. It's kinda fun to do this. From what I remember, all EL Nikkors up through the 135mm use an M39 thread, but only 105mm and longer lenses will be able to focus to infinity with most bellows.</p>

<p>Lots of people are able to focus manually, and to do so rather well, with a D700 or even with cameras with viewfinders that are inferior to the one in the D700. Sometimes this is facilitated by replacing the focusing screen with an aftermarket one that costs under $100. This is a fact.</p>

<p>Shun Cheung, I recommended that the original poster try one of the <strong>MANUAL FOCUS LENSES</strong>. I did not once mention autofocus <em>anything</em> in my post. I'm well aware that the <strong>AUTOFOCUS</strong> 20mm is not well regarded. Bjorn has reported getting good results with his AI(s) optics in 20mm. I know that he's not always right, but, most of the time, I think I'll be OK by betting on him, thanks.</p>

<p>Thanks for the help, amigos.</p>

<p>When you ask questions like this here, you will be told that unless you buy the latest, greatest, most expensive, biggest, heaviest, most impressive looking bazooka, the money you spent on the D700 will be completely wasted!<br /> Seriously, if you want decent performance and do not wish to blow a lot of money, try a manual focus 20mmF3.5 or 20mmF4, or an F2.8 for a little more, as Carl Becker suggested earlier. Just make sure that it is at least AI, AIS, or has been converted to AI. It doesn't have to cost a lot; I recently picked up a 20mmF4 for $50 off of the local online ads. This is one big advantage when you shoot a Nikon - there is a treasure trove of old Nikkors made since the 1950s. Many photographers are able to do great work with older lenses like those - just google the name "Bjorn Rorslett" and read his lens reviews - he tests lenses on the latest Nikon cameras. By the way, about a year and a half ago I bought some old gizmo or other from a photographer for a daily newspaper here in Washington D.C. At the time, he was still using D2H cameras, and his main lens was the first version of the 16-35mm zoom. Surely not cutting edge stuff, but it wasn't holding him back, though he did plan to upgrade to D300's.</p>

<p>Does anybody make a B or E type screen for cameras below the D300? I mean something with a matte surface that works at low light levels. I've a replacement split-image rangefinder screen in a D40 and it works well with most manual-focus lenses, but I'm looking for something that doesn't go dark with long, slow lenses, or bellows, etc. I looked at the Katzeye website and they have several choices, but they all seem to have either the split rangefinder or microprism circle. Has anyone found something like what I'm talking about?</p>

 

<p>I thought all Xenars were large-format taking lenses. This one has a 39mm thread on the rear. I've checked the Schneider website and the serial number would put its production date in 1954. There's no listing of any Xenar enlarging lenses, but their online documentation is probably incomplete. I'm wondering if this lens was OEM in an enlarger package, maybe a 5x7 Durst or similar setup. Does anyone have any experience with Xenar enlarging lenses? And no, I don't have a 5x7 camera or enlarger. I'm planning to adapt it for taking pictures, perhaps in medium format.</p>