Chris Adler
Veteran
I bought one of the huge Kowa 2x projector lenses off eBay a long time and and have had it sitting on the shelf because it was pretty unusable for most shots. After reading about one guy who flipped the rear element of his Century Optics adapter around and getting much better results I figured I'd see what I could do with my Kowa. First thing I did was remove both glass elements from the housing. I then reversed the rear element.
I removed the focus ring from the front so now the front element has a much larger range of motion. Before it could only extend maybe 1/2 an inch. It has about 3 inches of room now. With this configuration I can shoot WITHOUT having to use diopters. It's not focus-through, so there's no rack focusing permitted with this configuration, but I can shoot up close (within about 4 feet easily) and as far away as I want. It's a 2x lens which is helpful since I'll crop it to 2.4:1 versus the 3.xx:1. Also, since I focus by adjusting the distance between the elements the aspect ratio will change a bit based on their distance. I plan to include a nice perfect circle on my slate so adjusting the clips shouldn't be too hard.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this "hack" in case some of you have an unusable anamorphic sitting around and want to play. The optics are fantastic through the big glass and the flares are nice.
I removed the focus ring from the front so now the front element has a much larger range of motion. Before it could only extend maybe 1/2 an inch. It has about 3 inches of room now. With this configuration I can shoot WITHOUT having to use diopters. It's not focus-through, so there's no rack focusing permitted with this configuration, but I can shoot up close (within about 4 feet easily) and as far away as I want. It's a 2x lens which is helpful since I'll crop it to 2.4:1 versus the 3.xx:1. Also, since I focus by adjusting the distance between the elements the aspect ratio will change a bit based on their distance. I plan to include a nice perfect circle on my slate so adjusting the clips shouldn't be too hard.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this "hack" in case some of you have an unusable anamorphic sitting around and want to play. The optics are fantastic through the big glass and the flares are nice.