Reversing front 50mm element to create 28mm

[brownpaperbagproductions]

I found an old Minolta 50mm 1.7 and took it apart and played around with rearranging the elements just for fun, turns out if you flip the front element backwards and put the back element right up to it, it gives a perfect 28mm fov.

There's some fisheye and vignette, but if you have a taste for lensbaby type stuff this is a cheap way to get a wide fast lens- though distortion and vignette is not as intense as a lensbaby.

Has anyone every done this with a Canon or more modern lens?

Here's the video. Sorry I didn't have any people around so its all just crap around my house. Also this all free-lens stuff, and I might have gotten carried away with bokeh shenanigans, but it's really hard to find sharp focus wide open with a fungi'ed lens. This isn't color corrected or sharpened or anything. Music is "Melting at the Temple" by J. G Thirlwell

 

[mitsos68]

Hi, it would be great if you could post a picture of the lens and some stills with the images you shot with it.

 

[brownpaperbagproductions]

Here's some shots of the lens and some comparison shots. A couple things that are important to note:

1. This Minolta lens is infested with fungus, originally that's why I wanted it- to create that old lens spherical aberration look- I even tried to strip the coating off with acetone because I heard that's what they did for Saving Private Ryan. Also I'm free-lensing, just holding the lens up to the camera, because I don't have a way to mount it.

2. The 28mm I'm using to shoot the Minolta lens and for the comparison shots is the Nikon 28mm 2.8 Ais, which scientifically is the best 28mm ever made and is one of the few lenses that doesn't have perspective distortion.

So this is comparing the very worst to the very best. But the point is that you can turn a 50mm 1.7 into a 28mm 1.7.

Nikon 28mm 2.8 iso 1000.

iso 1600.

The haze and halation is caused by the fungus, this is wide open at f1.7 iso 200. Very Glamorous.

Nikon 28mm at 2.8, iso 2000

Minolta reconfigured 28mm, iso 1000

 

[Jawa Ex Machina]

I would love to see some handheld video shot with this.
Might make cool dream- or drunklike footage.

 

[brownpaperbagproductions]

Yeah, orginally I wanted this lens for a fantasy type movie and was inspired by Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, which I'm sure is a net filter or an old lens.

But having a 28mm 1.8 would also be practical outside of fantasy, which is why I'm asking if anyone has tried this with a non-fungi lens. I don't know if the vignetting would be any better, but it would sure be cleaner and sharper.

And of course this is all from a DIY, low budget standpoint, because if I had an extra $400 I would just buy the Canon 28 1.8 or the Sigma 30 1.4.