Possible to build a lens adapter?

K

Kellar42

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I was just wondering, with access to a competent machine shop, would it be easy to turn out a micro 4/3 to say Canon FD adapter? I mean are there specs around or something? I'm in Panama and the mail can get weird, and I don't have time to deal with that, but we've got a lot of decent machine/metal shops.

Just wondering what goes into their construction?
 
anything is possible, whether or not it is worth your time and effort is another matter. factor in trial and error also.

I suspect they are cnc automated to be able to pump out the volume that they do to recoup on research and development costs.
 
I built an adapter for my Nikon lenses that works reasonably well. I just posted a test reel on vimeo here. I don't know what goes into making a metal one. My adapter is made of the lenses plastic rear protective cap + a piece of ABS pipe + the GH1's plastic body cap.

I drilled holes in the caps, guesstimated the focus distance by holding the lens to the GH1 and blocking light with a tube of paper, then cut the ABS pipe to that distance, tested the focus distance again with the caps and ABS, trimmed/sanded/tested ABS till it focused to infinity, then glued the pieces together with JB Kwik weld. Did it all in a day, maybe 4-5 hours at most including shopping time.

Couple problems:
-It's not very pretty.
-I couldn't test how flat/parrell the lens is to the sensor after I put the JB epoxy on, so it's not perfectly squared with the sensor- not to a degree where it looks weird though.
-There's no locks on the caps so it doesn't snap to the body of the camera or the lens, this has yet to be a problem but I guess it's possible to bump it till it unscrewed itself, if you pay attention though this won't happen.
-No communication with the camera. Though this is only with high end adapters anyways.
 
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