Homemade 35mm -- Edited Copy for Reading

Agus Casse · December 1st, 2003, 07:32 PM

Some high quality images

http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto01.jpg
http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto02.jpg
http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto03.jpg
http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto04.jpg
http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto05.jpg

Agus Casse · December 1st, 2003, 08:04 PM

Here is a cool video !!!

Quicktime
http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto35mmfilmtest2v4.mov

Windows Media
http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto35mmfilmtest2v4.wmv

Eric Roccascca · December 1st, 2003, 09:08 PM

This could be a good source for the projection glass.

http://www.edmundoptics.com/IOD/Browse.cfm?catid=453

These guys make all sorts of good optic supplies.

Paul Bettner · December 2nd, 2003, 03:24 AM

Hi Agus!

Well, I finished building the first version of my Agus35 tonight... Unfortunately for some reason my computer won't see the camera as a DV deck so I can't import footage at the moment, but I will as soon as I get it working... In the meantime:

I can't seem to get rid of vignetting. I am using a TRV17, and at the closest I can place the lens to the ground glass, I still get a bright spot in the middle of the image (much like your earlier footage Agus.) If I zoom in more than about half way, it goes wildly out of focus. I think I may need to use a magnifying glass as you did in your device but Im not sure where to find that... Also, where exactly it is mounted in the device?

My problem is that I basically can't zoom in enough to cover the entire screen with the bright spot.

thanks for any help! Almost there!

paulb

p.s. I used the spindle from a broken CD player I had lying around as the motor/ground-glass axle. It works beautifully because it mounts the CD perfectly centered on the attached little plastic mount disc with ZERO vibration! A cd player with this type of motor/mount could be found at toysrus/bestbuy/whatever for less than 20 dollars.

J. Clayton Stansberry · December 2nd, 2003, 11:19 AM

Paul,

Were you able to use the CD player motor too? That is a brilliant idea...remove a cheap CD player's inards, replace them to a housing, and all you have to do is get the distance right on how far the "glass" is from the lens and hit "play"!!! I wonder if you can remove the CD laser(?) and still be able to hit play and it would work, then hit stop when done???? What'd you think?

Clay

P.S. Then you could also run it on two AA batteries!!!

Paul Bettner · December 2nd, 2003, 02:15 PM

I skipped using any of the rest of the CD player's electronics for now. My main goal in canabalizing the player was to get at the little plastic piece that the CD sits on, because this is perfectly centered on the motor and gives zero vibration (it's built to do that!)

paulb

Kieran Clayton · December 3rd, 2003, 08:12 AM

Okay, I now have a quote for a manufactured piece of ground glass:

100mm diameter with a 10mm hole in the centre is £70 ($121 at the current exchange rate) for a one off. But bear in mind that industrial optics manufacturers tend to do bulk orders rather than one off commissions. Also I'm not sure what the thickness is, but if it's similar to edmund optics then it should only be 1mm, so it shouldn't add too much weight on the motor..

I think I'll stick with the plastic cd until one of you sees how much better the adapter performs with "proper" ground glass. After all the XL1s might cope fine with the loss of stops..

Anyway I'm getting a little ahead of myself, as my first problem's going to be getting the adapter on to the XL1s in the first place :o)

Kieran

Paul Bettner · December 3rd, 2003, 12:14 PM

One other thing... I've been looking into ground glass, and it doesn't look like it's too difficult to make your own. You basically take two sheets of glass, and rub them together for 15 minutes with a very fine grit and some water inbetween (apparently Bearing grit will do the trick, from an auto store). From there, you can cut the pane of glass into a circle with a circular glass cutter. Most of that stuff can be found in a stained glass art supply store, such as Hobby Lobby.

The only trick will be the fact that I can't cut a CD-sized hole small enough in the middle, coz the circular glass cutter won't go that small. Instead, what I think im going to do is cut a larger hole, and then affix the CD to the surface of the glass with glue, therefore giving me a CD sized hole :-)

paulb

Agus Casse · December 3rd, 2003, 12:17 PM

yeah.. that is a excellente solution, but remember to take a close look to the weight, you cant force the little motor too much to get high spining speeds

Fenn Jacob · December 4th, 2003, 10:39 PM

I've been following this thread for a couple of days now-and I'm getting excited! I operate in EXTREME low budget filming and this cheap of a 35 mm solution (as far as DOF goes) looks promising. However, I am still quite naive in this field-and have a couple of questions...

-There has not been any detailed tutorial posted yet on the construction of this homemade adapter, correct? When I get some time I might get building from the info from the previous posts-but I just wanted to make sure I hadn't skipped the completed tutorial.

-I have been saving for a Canon XL1s, but am a little fuzzy on the easiest way to adapt a 35mm lens to it. The interchangeable lens feature of the XL1s attracted me-is there not a way to take a Canon 35 mm lens and stick it onto the XL1s? Or is this still relatively expensive or just not a part of the interchangeable lens design. Has anyone successfully adapted Agus's setup to the XL1s?

- For my final question I demonstrate my complete ignorance. I know little about different camera lenses-especially in price. About how much is a decent 35mm lens that could be used on this setup? Other than this (and the camera) the rest of the material could be purchased for under $10-&15, correct?

A big thank-you to all who have spent their time in posting examples, asking questions, and designing the adapter in the first place! You're inspiring.

Barry Green · December 4th, 2003, 10:43 PM

The XL1 is going to be the most difficult camera to adapt to the Agus35. You need a lens to focus the image from the ground glass onto the CCD's. In the mini35, for the DVX100 and the PD150, they use the camera's built-in lens (as Agus is using for his adapter). For the XL1 mini35, they supply a relay lens for that purpose. If you have an XL1 and don't have a relay lens, you won't be able to use the Agus35 (unless you want to stick it on the front of your 16x lens).

Agus Casse · December 5th, 2003, 12:54 AM

Today we shoot a Maseratti racing car, i got some awesome shoots that i will post later...

Jacob, you can adapt 35mm lens to the xls, but you wont get DOF, but you can find some canon SLR lens (could be old) that are used to get pictures to really close distance, in that way you can shoot the ground glass with no problem... so in other words you need to find a relay lens that replace your 16x one to a macro type one (dunno if macro is used to take close pictures).

I have tons of work i am sorry for no posting the plans yet, but i really barely have time to sleep.

Peter Sciretta · December 5th, 2003, 07:39 AM

I have a pd150 camera

I need to magnify the image as I can't focus on it and its too small when its in focus...

I can't afford to break any of my wide angle lens as agus did.

Can I by a macro or "telephoto" lens that will do the same thing? or amy i thinking wrongly?

Dino Reyes · December 5th, 2003, 11:33 AM

I actually believe the XL1S is perfectly suited for the Agus35. There may be some other costs involved but very nominal comparison to purchasing/leasing the Mini35. So far these are my plans, the most important part is the support bracket, which I have just ordered this, a baseplate with rails $295(http://www.jbkcine.com/i-1.JPG) from here http://www.jbkcine.com, I also have an EF adapter, but you can probably pick one up here $395, http://www.virtualcybervision.com/xl1/EOSMAIN.htm (btw, all EF adapaters are real pieces of junk, they don't really work unless you have, like, a 500mm lens) but since they are machined one offs, you might be able to pick one up on ebay a bit cheaper. Now once you have the adapter, you can put on a standard prime lens, hopefully, I'll know when my brackett and rods come in, I should just about be able to stand a 25CD container right on top + batteries, and the lens on the other side. Since the camera already large I think good support base is important. As far as the glass, I've working with a stain glass person to help me cut different types of glass I want to test out. Very cheap actually, $5 per glass cut in the shape of a CD. I'll either dremel one side to make a gg (ground glass) or get them to use etching acid (which i think could be best) and also, just for experiementing I ordered 2 - 5 x7 sheets of optic quality gg like $30 bucks total... so that's where i am at so far with my Agus35, I'll keep everyone posted, stay tuned....

ps: also why the xl1 is great is because of it's AMAZING low light capabilities, once you have an ideal optical adjustment the results should be stunning...

Devin Doyle · December 6th, 2003, 09:24 AM

Hey everyone, after tracking this thread with bated breath and waiting for our good buddy Agus to release a "how-to," I couldn't take it anymore and finally went out yesterday and made my own "Agus 50mm mod." Based on the "Ghetto 35mm" (which is a sweet name, Jun) and Agus' pics I went around town and collected:

- 30 cd-r pack (for the spindle and clear cd)
- 3V electric motor + AAA housing (gotta love Radioshack)
- A rear lens cap for my Dad's old Olympus 50mm lens
- Some black paint from Wal-Mart for a buck
- Already had sand paper, a glue gun, and the lens

Hard to believe that's all you need, but sho'nuff it is. First I took the rear lens cap and sawed off the back (a laborious job indeed for a young squire with only a hacksaw) but I managed. The reason I used this to connect the 50mm lens to the body was so that you could easily interchange lenses and avoid gluing the whole lens to the body (pops wasn't too keen on that one, see the pic below). Then with a bit of elbow grease I cut the 50mm hole in the top cover of the cd-r spindle, then the 58mm hole in the back (for my GL1's lens).

It was then that I realized that our 58mm cams (VX2K, GL1, GL2, PD-150) require a hole that covers part of the middle of the back - exactly where the motor needed to sit. So, I opted to install the motor from the front. (more cutting in the front part of the cd-r spindle) I next took some very fine sandpaper and scratched away at the plastic cd. I broke an old, soft, plastic cd case and mounted just the center part to the shaft of the motor, then popped the cd on. (You can barely see it in the pic labeled "guts". This way it's pretty much centered with little vibration that Agus experienced.

After that - I got out the hot glue gun and went to town. I adhered the now back-less back lens cap around my 50mm hole, and stuck the motor in and glued it securely directly beneath my lens mount. Hot glue is about the best thing for this because it's strong, but can easily be broken away if you mess up. I found it helpful. Of course, before I glued the motor in place I put the lens on the back lens cap mount I made and checked which focal length resulted in a sharp image on the scratched cd. Then I glued the motor with the cd on. Next I simply painted the whole thing and allowed it to dry overnight.

It works like a charm on my naked eye, unfortunately, my GL1 is in the shop due to a faulty LCD (crocodile tears) Therefore I don't have any video to share. I took the pics below so you can see the finished product. The pics of it in action are pretty sheissty, not too much I can do with a digi-cam, and they really don't do justice to what you see with your eye alone.

I attached it to my parent's old VHS-C cam and it works pretty well (as well as it can work with such a consumer cam) but it's really quite amazing how the image is projected onto the spinning plastic. Anyways, hope I didn't babble too much, and I wanna send thanks out to Agus, Jun, and everyone else on the thread for contributing ideas! I hope this post can help someone out!

http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_wide.JPG
http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_lens.JPG
http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_guts.JPG
http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_far.JPG
http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_close.JPG

December 1st, 2003, 09:08 PM	#63
Eric Roccascca Tourist Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Des Moines, IA Posts: 2	Diffusion Glass This could be a good source for the projection glass. http://www.edmundoptics.com/IOD/Browse.cfm?catid=453 These guys make all sorts of good optic supplies.

December 2nd, 2003, 11:19 AM	#65
J. Clayton Stansberry Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 316	Paul, Were you able to use the CD player motor too? That is a brilliant idea...remove a cheap CD player's inards, replace them to a housing, and all you have to do is get the distance right on how far the "glass" is from the lens and hit "play"!!! I wonder if you can remove the CD laser(?) and still be able to hit play and it would work, then hit stop when done???? What'd you think? Clay P.S. Then you could also run it on two AA batteries!!! __________________ I understand everything about nothing.

December 5th, 2003, 11:33 AM	#74
Dino Reyes Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: brooklyn Posts: 66	Agus35 for the XL1S I actually believe the XL1S is perfectly suited for the Agus35. There may be some other costs involved but very nominal comparison to purchasing/leasing the Mini35. So far these are my plans, the most important part is the support bracket, which I have just ordered this, a baseplate with rails $295(http://www.jbkcine.com/i-1.JPG) from here http://www.jbkcine.com, I also have an EF adapter, but you can probably pick one up here $395, http://www.virtualcybervision.com/xl1/EOSMAIN.htm (btw, all EF adapaters are real pieces of junk, they don't really work unless you have, like, a 500mm lens) but since they are machined one offs, you might be able to pick one up on ebay a bit cheaper. Now once you have the adapter, you can put on a standard prime lens, hopefully, I'll know when my brackett and rods come in, I should just about be able to stand a 25CD container right on top + batteries, and the lens on the other side. Since the camera already large I think good support base is important. As far as the glass, I've working with a stain glass person to help me cut different types of glass I want to test out. Very cheap actually, $5 per glass cut in the shape of a CD. I'll either dremel one side to make a gg (ground glass) or get them to use etching acid (which i think could be best) and also, just for experiementing I ordered 2 - 5 x7 sheets of optic quality gg like $30 bucks total... so that's where i am at so far with my Agus35, I'll keep everyone posted, stay tuned.... ps: also why the xl1 is great is because of it's AMAZING low light capabilities, once you have an ideal optical adjustment the results should be stunning...

December 6th, 2003, 09:24 AM	#75
Devin Doyle Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 188	My Agus 50mm Mod Hey everyone, after tracking this thread with bated breath and waiting for our good buddy Agus to release a "how-to," I couldn't take it anymore and finally went out yesterday and made my own "Agus 50mm mod." Based on the "Ghetto 35mm" (which is a sweet name, Jun) and Agus' pics I went around town and collected: - 30 cd-r pack (for the spindle and clear cd) - 3V electric motor + AAA housing (gotta love Radioshack) - A rear lens cap for my Dad's old Olympus 50mm lens - Some black paint from Wal-Mart for a buck - Already had sand paper, a glue gun, and the lens Hard to believe that's all you need, but sho'nuff it is. First I took the rear lens cap and sawed off the back (a laborious job indeed for a young squire with only a hacksaw) but I managed. The reason I used this to connect the 50mm lens to the body was so that you could easily interchange lenses and avoid gluing the whole lens to the body (pops wasn't too keen on that one, see the pic below). Then with a bit of elbow grease I cut the 50mm hole in the top cover of the cd-r spindle, then the 58mm hole in the back (for my GL1's lens). It was then that I realized that our 58mm cams (VX2K, GL1, GL2, PD-150) require a hole that covers part of the middle of the back - exactly where the motor needed to sit. So, I opted to install the motor from the front. (more cutting in the front part of the cd-r spindle) I next took some very fine sandpaper and scratched away at the plastic cd. I broke an old, soft, plastic cd case and mounted just the center part to the shaft of the motor, then popped the cd on. (You can barely see it in the pic labeled "guts". This way it's pretty much centered with little vibration that Agus experienced. After that - I got out the hot glue gun and went to town. I adhered the now back-less back lens cap around my 50mm hole, and stuck the motor in and glued it securely directly beneath my lens mount. Hot glue is about the best thing for this because it's strong, but can easily be broken away if you mess up. I found it helpful. Of course, before I glued the motor in place I put the lens on the back lens cap mount I made and checked which focal length resulted in a sharp image on the scratched cd. Then I glued the motor with the cd on. Next I simply painted the whole thing and allowed it to dry overnight. It works like a charm on my naked eye, unfortunately, my GL1 is in the shop due to a faulty LCD (crocodile tears) Therefore I don't have any video to share. I took the pics below so you can see the finished product. The pics of it in action are pretty sheissty, not too much I can do with a digi-cam, and they really don't do justice to what you see with your eye alone. I attached it to my parent's old VHS-C cam and it works pretty well (as well as it can work with such a consumer cam) but it's really quite amazing how the image is projected onto the spinning plastic. Anyways, hope I didn't babble too much, and I wanna send thanks out to Agus, Jun, and everyone else on the thread for contributing ideas! I hope this post can help someone out! http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_wide.JPG http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_lens.JPG http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_guts.JPG http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_far.JPG http://www.par-t-com.net/50mm_close.JPG __________________ http://devin.par-t-com.net

December 1st, 2003, 07:32 PM	#61
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	Some high quality images http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto01.jpg http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto02.jpg http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto03.jpg http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto04.jpg http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto05.jpg

December 1st, 2003, 08:04 PM	#62
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	Here is a cool video !!! Quicktime http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto35mmfilmtest2v4.mov Windows Media http://altoque.tv/35mmAdapter/moto35mmfilmtest2v4.wmv

December 2nd, 2003, 03:24 AM	#64
Paul Bettner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 42	Hi Agus! Well, I finished building the first version of my Agus35 tonight... Unfortunately for some reason my computer won't see the camera as a DV deck so I can't import footage at the moment, but I will as soon as I get it working... In the meantime: I can't seem to get rid of vignetting. I am using a TRV17, and at the closest I can place the lens to the ground glass, I still get a bright spot in the middle of the image (much like your earlier footage Agus.) If I zoom in more than about half way, it goes wildly out of focus. I think I may need to use a magnifying glass as you did in your device but Im not sure where to find that... Also, where exactly it is mounted in the device? My problem is that I basically can't zoom in enough to cover the entire screen with the bright spot. thanks for any help! Almost there! paulb p.s. I used the spindle from a broken CD player I had lying around as the motor/ground-glass axle. It works beautifully because it mounts the CD perfectly centered on the attached little plastic mount disc with ZERO vibration! A cd player with this type of motor/mount could be found at toysrus/bestbuy/whatever for less than 20 dollars.

December 2nd, 2003, 02:15 PM	#66
Paul Bettner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 42	I skipped using any of the rest of the CD player's electronics for now. My main goal in canabalizing the player was to get at the little plastic piece that the CD sits on, because this is perfectly centered on the motor and gives zero vibration (it's built to do that!) paulb

December 3rd, 2003, 08:12 AM	#67
Kieran Clayton Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: England Posts: 56	Okay, I now have a quote for a manufactured piece of ground glass: 100mm diameter with a 10mm hole in the centre is £70 ($121 at the current exchange rate) for a one off. But bear in mind that industrial optics manufacturers tend to do bulk orders rather than one off commissions. Also I'm not sure what the thickness is, but if it's similar to edmund optics then it should only be 1mm, so it shouldn't add too much weight on the motor.. I think I'll stick with the plastic cd until one of you sees how much better the adapter performs with "proper" ground glass. After all the XL1s might cope fine with the loss of stops.. Anyway I'm getting a little ahead of myself, as my first problem's going to be getting the adapter on to the XL1s in the first place :o) Kieran

December 3rd, 2003, 12:14 PM	#68
Paul Bettner Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 42	One other thing... I've been looking into ground glass, and it doesn't look like it's too difficult to make your own. You basically take two sheets of glass, and rub them together for 15 minutes with a very fine grit and some water inbetween (apparently Bearing grit will do the trick, from an auto store). From there, you can cut the pane of glass into a circle with a circular glass cutter. Most of that stuff can be found in a stained glass art supply store, such as Hobby Lobby. The only trick will be the fact that I can't cut a CD-sized hole small enough in the middle, coz the circular glass cutter won't go that small. Instead, what I think im going to do is cut a larger hole, and then affix the CD to the surface of the glass with glue, therefore giving me a CD sized hole :-) paulb

December 3rd, 2003, 12:17 PM	#69
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	yeah.. that is a excellente solution, but remember to take a close look to the weight, you cant force the little motor too much to get high spining speeds

December 4th, 2003, 10:39 PM	#70
Fenn Jacob New Boot Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Thatcher UT Posts: 14	I've been following this thread for a couple of days now-and I'm getting excited! I operate in EXTREME low budget filming and this cheap of a 35 mm solution (as far as DOF goes) looks promising. However, I am still quite naive in this field-and have a couple of questions... -There has not been any detailed tutorial posted yet on the construction of this homemade adapter, correct? When I get some time I might get building from the info from the previous posts-but I just wanted to make sure I hadn't skipped the completed tutorial. -I have been saving for a Canon XL1s, but am a little fuzzy on the easiest way to adapt a 35mm lens to it. The interchangeable lens feature of the XL1s attracted me-is there not a way to take a Canon 35 mm lens and stick it onto the XL1s? Or is this still relatively expensive or just not a part of the interchangeable lens design. Has anyone successfully adapted Agus's setup to the XL1s? - For my final question I demonstrate my complete ignorance. I know little about different camera lenses-especially in price. About how much is a decent 35mm lens that could be used on this setup? Other than this (and the camera) the rest of the material could be purchased for under $10-&15, correct? A big thank-you to all who have spent their time in posting examples, asking questions, and designing the adapter in the first place! You're inspiring.

December 4th, 2003, 10:43 PM	#71
Barry Green Barry Wan Kenobi Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: North Carolina Posts: 3,863	The XL1 is going to be the most difficult camera to adapt to the Agus35. You need a lens to focus the image from the ground glass onto the CCD's. In the mini35, for the DVX100 and the PD150, they use the camera's built-in lens (as Agus is using for his adapter). For the XL1 mini35, they supply a relay lens for that purpose. If you have an XL1 and don't have a relay lens, you won't be able to use the Agus35 (unless you want to stick it on the front of your 16x lens).

December 5th, 2003, 12:54 AM	#72
Agus Casse Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Guatemala Posts: 322	Today we shoot a Maseratti racing car, i got some awesome shoots that i will post later... Jacob, you can adapt 35mm lens to the xls, but you wont get DOF, but you can find some canon SLR lens (could be old) that are used to get pictures to really close distance, in that way you can shoot the ground glass with no problem... so in other words you need to find a relay lens that replace your 16x one to a macro type one (dunno if macro is used to take close pictures). I have tons of work i am sorry for no posting the plans yet, but i really barely have time to sleep.

December 5th, 2003, 07:39 AM	#73
Peter Sciretta Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 72	I have a pd150 camera I need to magnify the image as I can't focus on it and its too small when its in focus... I can't afford to break any of my wide angle lens as agus did. Can I by a macro or "telephoto" lens that will do the same thing? or amy i thinking wrongly?