DIY 35mm Shift/Tilt lens...

[j]

Since we have people building their own lens mounts, how hard would it be...

any thoughts?

-j

[Shaw]

Very interesting proposition. Do you mean how to create your own shift lens or can you use a shift lens on these adapters? If you have a shift lens and a mini35 type setup then no problem. I'm not sure it's possible to adapt a normal lens to become a shift lens. Interesting problem.. will have to ponder that some more.

[j]

Nah, I'm thinking about mounting regular SLR lenses in a swing(and/or shift?) /tilt mount.

Perhaps it could be mounted on one of these:

http://thorlabs.com/NewGroupPage.cfm?Guide=37&Category_ID=174&ObjectGr oup_ID=860

and connected w/ a bellows...

Sounds simple enough...

-j

[Brett_Erskine]

I understand what your saying about the bellow and how they would work with the Thorlabs mounts but what I'm confused about is to what purpose. Do you want to take still photos with this set up or are you thinking about a swing/shift mini35. If its the second example than you're my kind of guy. I love to tinker with stuff. I looked into this early on in the mini35 project and I can tell you that no matter if you want to do a tilt/shift mini35 or still pics heres what I found:

1)There is a company that has bellows and mounts that are ready-made for this exact purpose AND they are intended for use with 35mm lenses but I dont recall the name right now. Google search it out.

2)35mm lenses produce a image on the GG thats not much larger than the size of a 35mm negative. While large format cameras that are intended for tilt shift work DO project a image much larger than their GG. This means that the tilt/shift effects you can pull off with a large format camera are likely to be much more dramatic than a 35mm tilt/shift system.

3)There are ready-made 35mm lens that shift only but I dont believe they have any tilt as well.

4)The Thorlabs mounts look solid but they tilt on the wrong axis point. Normally the axis is in line with the center of the lens but with the Thorlabs mount it will be at the bottom. This may not be a big deal but it does mean that you will have to adjust the length of the bellows whenever you tilt the lens to get a similar look as if you had a real tilt/shift belllows system.

5)Most available large format bellows are unlikely to be able to lock and support the much heaver 35mm lenses. However they do make them for motion picture cameras but even thoughs rely on smaller/lighter weight lenses.

Good luck.

[Bill__Turner]

Just so you know, Canon makes 24mm, 45mm, and 90mm Tilt and Shift lenses for their EOS series of 35mm SLR's. Nikon makes a 28mm and 35mm but they are shift only.

For any that may not know, the shift function allows correction for (or introduction of ) perspective distortion - the classic example is the tall bulding that appears to narrow -the sides converge- as you look up it.

The tilt function lets you either increase or decrease the apparent depth of field by tilting the lenses plane of focus with respect to the film plan or image sensor.

Century modifies the Canon lenses for use of 35mm motion picture cameras and also B4 mount video cameras (Tilt only). Century also produces the Clairmont SwingShift system which is essentially a view camera type rig for profession motion picture cameras.

Bill Turner
Century Division
Schneider Optics

[TimeKoder13]

Thanx Bill. It's cats like you that have made me the recipient of many "where'd you go to film school?" comments. My partner and I were pitching a budget the other night on a 4way call and I was constantly chiming in "tell him what that means" as my partner was machine gunning the money guy with crew jargon. I've been doing this since 2000 and I'm just starting to learn about some of the cross-convergence capabilities of equipment from the 35 world. Thanx again. As I always answered the question..."The internet, it's all on the web...google it!"