Homemade 35mm Adapter

[Spencer Houck]

Ok, so as I said above I finally got my grubby little hands on a +10 macro adapter for my VX2000. I was fooling around with my new ability to gather close focus to the frosted cd when all of the sudden, to my delight, I realized that when I wasn't holding the cd in place a clear image was seen from just zooming right into the center of my 50mm lens. It's a 50mm 1:1.8 Olympus lens. So here's a design featuring literally no GG at all, just zoomed through the +10 macro's vignettes, and the 50mm lens' vignettes, and voila no grain, no fuss.

So, to exaggerate my point, I have a 50mm SLR lens placed about 4.5 inches in front of my VX2000 with a UV adapter and a +10 Macro adapter on it. THATS IT!

It's shaky due to the fact that nothing is mounted, its just sitting on my table...not light tight whatsoever. Notice the HUGE amount of breathing when focusing (the changing of size of objects when focus is shifted) Don't know what to do about that, pretty much a feature of inexpensive still camera lenses, but in general I'm really happy with this...

So please watch the short clip I've captured, it's under tests on this page:

http://www.par-t-com.net/media.html
(The image was flipped in post)

...and then bring me back to Earth as to why this won't work for some probably obvious reason.

Happily,
Spencer Houck

[Corey Smith]

Spencer Houck, that's a cool discovery.

[Rob Hester]

Just wanted to say, your videos are really sweet!! I guess audio IS 70% of what you see!

Just wondering though, isn't the image also zoomed? We are trying to achieve more DOF within the same shot right? I just remember reading somewhere that you COULD use 35mm lenses with XL1's but they would also add to the zoomidge...if I make any sense. it's 6:11. I'm going to bed.

[Peter Sciretta]

What +10 macro adapter do you have? Brand? Model?

[Corey Smith]

Where can I get this Zenith 50's GG? Can't wait to see your footage.

[Bob Hart]

An interesting product available at the following web address,

www.scopetronix.com/maxview2.htm

conveys the image from a telescope to digital cameras with 58mm filter thread. May possibly work with the PD150/VX2000 camcorder family but may frame only the up to 18mm diameter image target my own adaptor does due to the smaller CCD area of motion video cameras compared to still cameras.

[Louis Grimaldo]

I thought there have been several people who have tried Spencer's method with no luck. Hey Spencer, could you post some more footage once you have the whole thing completed? Maybe having the +10 macro is the ticket. It's hard to believe that it's that simple.

[John Gaspain]

<<<-- Originally posted by Spencer Houck : Ok, so as I said above I finally got my grubby little hands on a +10 macro adapter for my VX2000. I was fooling around with my new ability to gather close focus to the frosted cd when all of the sudden, to my delight, I realized that when I wasn't holding the cd in place a clear image was seen from just zooming right into the center of my 50mm lens. It's a 50mm 1:1.8 Olympus lens. So here's a design featuring literally no GG at all, just zoomed through the +10 macro's vignettes, and the 50mm lens' vignettes, and voila no grain, no fuss.

So, to exaggerate my point, I have a 50mm SLR lens placed about 4.5 inches in front of my VX2000 with a UV adapter and a +10 Macro adapter on it. THATS IT!

It's shaky due to the fact that nothing is mounted, its just sitting on my table...not light tight whatsoever. Notice the HUGE amount of breathing when focusing (the changing of size of objects when focus is shifted) Don't know what to do about that, pretty much a feature of inexpensive still camera lenses, but in general I'm really happy with this...

So please watch the short clip I've captured, it's under tests on this page:

http://www.par-t-com.net/media.html
(The image was flipped in post)

...and then bring me back to Earth as to why this won't work for some probably obvious reason.

Happily,
Spencer Houck -->>>

NICE WORK!..I tried and failed. I have the same Oly lens too, Maybe if I try a macro lens with it.

[Spencer Houck]

<<<-- Originally posted by Peter Sciretta : What +10 macro adapter do you have? Brand? Model? -->>>

It's a "samigon" branded (1:1) Macro Close-Up Lens +10 58mm made in JAPAN. So says the little oldschool box it came in. I got it from a store called Campus Camera, at the local university. It caters to still photography, so I'm assuming most well stocked still photography stores would have something similar.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Hester :J ust wondering though, isn't the image also zoomed? -->>>

As far as I can tell the image is just as if you were using a ground glass. In essence I'm still taking a picture of a picture. The zooming by 7x happens with XL1's with 35 mm lenses adapted directly to them, projecting the 35mm negative's image right onto the camera's CCD. The 50mm lens I'm using must pass through my VX2000's lens, so the CCDs are not being projected onto directly, so it doesn't magnify.

Also with that direct coupling on the XL1 you don't recieve the DoF of the 35, so by default I don't think thats happening, cause i'm experiencing some "XtremE Shallow DoF".

One thing to note tho, is that for mine to work, the 50mm lens itself must be shifted 1 and 7/8s of and inch to and fro the VX2000 to achieve focus of 4 inches to infinity.

-Distance of 3 5/8 inches from the back of my 50mm lens to the front of my camera's housing(not the front of the +10) gives me a focus of infinity.
-Distance of 5 1/2 inches from the back of my 50mm lens to the front of my camera's housing(not the front of the +10) gives me a focus of 4 inches.

The lens' focus ring will not move the focus to this range, and therefore the whole lens must be mounted to some sort of moving platform. I'm hoping to be able to focus much like a telephoto 35mm lens with a smooth slide ring around a tube which moves the 50mm lens to and fro.

So, in short, this does indeed produce a much more optically perfect image, no grain, none of that, but introduces problems of allowing smooth focus adjustments on the fly. It would be easy to make an adapter that can change focus between shots, but to change the shallow focus while the camera is rolling when your character walks closer to the lens will require a more sophisticated structure.

Hope this helps, I'm going to continue testing housings to allow on-the-fly focus adjustment.

Spencer Houck

[Agus Casse]

Actually what spencer is doing is all another thing to the Agus35,...

He is still making the image in the camera CCD, so you wont get the same DOF of the SLR lens in a negative, he is still need to full zoom this dv camera to open the iris to the max and then adjust the focus.

With the agus35 you are creating the imag first in a Ground Glass, and than you just shoot that image with your dv camera, making in other words that your CCDS either you have 1 chip, or 3 chip camera, to be as big as a 35mm one to capture the full DOF.

[James Emory]

I ran across this looking at lights.

www.arri.com/entry/ggc.htm

[Peter A. Smith]

Spencer

I discovered that as well late afternoon when i stacked tiffen marcos up to +11. I have a sony trv 900, stacked the macros, rigged my version of the agus35. When i took off the GG i saw a full frame into the canon lens. Exicted, I started doing immediate test in my room using dolls for DOF and then compared pixels with the rig and without using photoshop and AF.

I found conclusive by,using a 28mm lens, i get the SLR len's angle of view, and DOF, but lose 1 1/2 stops.
However, when i tried to rack focus, i liked what i got from the TRV900 better. I know the 28mm is not great with narrow focus but i think it's more convienent without any lens rigged at all then what i saw.
When i deinterlaced and color corrected, I see a slightly diffused image from the SLR, but I have come to the conclusion that what creates much of the film look of the P&S and Agus's version is the GG. You need to have it because i was dissapointed in DOF and the quality was just the same as if I didn't rig anything at all but with light loss.
I have a Agus35 up and running but it cuts too much light and plan on making my own gound glass to shoot indoors. The quality of the GG is really important.

Peace

[Spencer Houck]

Agus, I may not be capturing the full DoF of a 35mm SLR, but if you've seen the video I linked to, I believe that the DoF is quite adequate. I'd rather have the clearest picture coming in...regardless of its "videoness" and "non-film" grainyness. Frankly if I want to degrade the image with grain, I've always got After Effects.

The two main steps, or barriers, I see between me and the almighty "film look" = lack of shallow DoF, and lack of 24p.

24p shall be achieved through post-pro (magic bullet, or vegas), and the DoF is seen in my test video, so theres the 2 barriers coming to a crashing end in my book. So i'm sittin' pretty at the moment.

Spencer Houck

[Louis Feng]

Does anyone know the patent numbers related to the mini35 and pro35? I have tried an couldn't find any from US Patent office's web site. I want to read them and see exactly what they have patented. Considering it's a new product, they may not have the patents yet (patent pending). At least it's good to know what we can do and what we can't do. I am all for competing products (while respecting their inventions) especially when their price is quite out of this world.

[Agus Casse]

Vendi, their only creative solution that could be patented is the moving ground glass. Cause all the other is all done a long time ago.. it is a just a camera obscura what you are using to capture the image from the ground glass... no more no less... dont worry about that... i would worry more about movietube which use the same system as you.

www.movietube.com