Flange focus and light loss, can I increase the projection circle of a lens?

So my roommate and I were just messing around on the internet and decided to bid on an old S16mm PL mount Angenieux zoom for fun. We ended up having the winning bid, and now will soon own it!

We really don't care terribly much about the lens as far as using it on our films, but we just like old cinema gear, so I'll probably not use much at all except for the occasional film that requires that older vintage zoom lens look, and of course need to shoot it at 2k... but then again, I was curious about increasing the flange focus distance and perhaps squeezing the lens to 4k.

Technically, I'm asking this...

If I got a PL adapter, to something else, and back to a PL adapter (because both the RedOne and Lens are PL mount) would increasing the flange distance of the back element of the lens force the projection circle of the lens to increase? In doing so, I acknowledge that spreading the gathered light over a greater distance means less exposure, so a T/2.5 or T/2.8 lens would turn into a T/4 or T/5.6. And I know the barrel markings would become VERY unusable, losing the ability to focus that range. But for mid range focusing, such as 10ft away or something should stay available.

I'm not a lens tech, but just theorizing... if I increased the PL flange depth of 52mm to perhaps around 100mm, it should almost cover 35mm, yes? Twice the distance would be around 4-times the surface area of the projected image circle. This would also technically be a two stop loss, right?

I'm going off of the inverse square law of light. Double the distance of a light and it spreads to 4x the surface area, thus losing two stops.

I'm excited to at least try this out. I'd end up shooting at a T/5.6 but I figure I usually do that on day interior commercial work, so why not?

And again, I understand that changing the flange distance without changing the backfocus of the lens will result in a HUGE shift of the focus markings and thus I'll loose a big part of that scale. However, I do think there will be a zone still achievable to focus on and if I can keep subjects within that zone (unknown as of now) I can at least get critical focus on individual focal lengths. I understand many won't be possible anymore AND zooming through focal lengths will def not hold focus.


Thoughts??

ps: If I were to try this... does anyone familiar with adapters know a good combination to increase flange distance?



PPS: Holy crap, I am dumb. Isn't a Telephoto 2x extender ALMOST exactly what I am talking about, yet should not disrupt the focus scale? I kinda feel dumb.
 
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Essentially what you're doing is mounting the lens on a bellows or extension tube. This is often used for macro work, as it allows far closer focusing than normal. However, as you mentioned there will be light loss, and in addition to the focus marks being completely useless, you will lose the ability to focus to infinity. As to the effectiveness for covering a larger film format, that I don't know.
 

Well, it looks like it will only cost you $5500.00 to find out! Ouch. Being in LA, you should be able to find a lens tech that could fabricate an adaptor to increase the flange distance for you. How's your schmoozing technique? I thought that the inverse square law was technically applicable to point sources, so your exposure calculations would probably need to developed by direct experimentation. Good luck with that. Post some pics as you experiment. That would be very cool.
 
I looked into that doubler and it's not suited for my Cooke prime lenses nor the 16mm zoom I just picked up. It would still do something, but it wouldn't keep the backfocus of the lens apparently, and that's not worth $5,500 :) . I'd be better just building a bellows or extension tube.

As for an extension tube/bellows, yes, I would lose infinity focus, but the projection circle would be increased from my understanding... and I do think the inverse square law would apply... that is why a 2x tele-extender is always 2 stops of light. It doubles the projected image circle 2x which is 4x the surface area hence 2 stops (4x less light) loss.

I'm still going to look into it further.
 
yeah I've experimented with 2x converters and such. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. You have to work with both the projected size and the focal distance, which are a bear to get in sync with each other. I'd just get a cheapo 2x converter from ebay, (check out old nikons, etc) and experiment some. You'll probably end up with a little barrel distortion and/or edge distortion in the end though.
 
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