I'm pretty sure this is the oldest lens I've seen here. I removed the lens/shutter assembly from the board by unscrewing the locking collar...didn't have a spanner, but a hollow ground screwdriver bit worked pretty well. I modified an old Vivitar 12mm M42 extension tube to mount it to. I had to file the face of it, and grind a couple of spots to clear screws on the back of the shutter, but it came together amazingly well. By pounding the little "baffle" inside the tube up toward the front of it, I was able to just use the original locking collar to retain the lens to the tube. It was pure luck the dimensions all worked out, but it came out really nice.
Didn't have much time to play with this stuff last night, so please forgive the lousy pics of my rig .
Here it is, the mighty Kodak Junior mounted on an M42 tube. These were made from 1914 to 1924.
Just kidding. I did manage to upload a bunch of my example pics though. The first shots I took with it were off my kitchen table. I finished this project at 11:00 at night, so it was too dark to really shoot much. I did try it out as a macro lens with the bellows at full extension. Not off a tripod, but I used my sweatshirt as a bag. MLU, remote, ISO 100, wide open (F 7.7). The lens is a Zeiss Tessar (Exakta mount) so it's pretty small to start with.
It captures a surprising amount of detail. There was NO post processing (other than a WB tweak). These are jpegs right from my 10D. No sharpening or anything . I think it's at least 1:1...maybe more. It would be easier to get more magnification with a couple of tubes stuck on the bellows. Also took these with it:
I under exposed these a bit, but you can still get an idea of just how low the contrast with this lens is. There's more shadow detail hiding in there than you would get with a coated (or multi-coated) lens. Remember, that's direct sunlight shining on there . Pretty cool. Ignore the dust on the TV...
Outside that morning I took a bunch more shots. Here's some examples:
Again, notice that there's actually detail in the white flower. This is direct sunlight...getting detail in both the green of the plant and the white of the flower is quite a feat (at least I think). Didn't notice a giant leap in sharpness between f7.7 and f11 though...
I also put this rig on my 1Ds for a couple shots at lunch yesterday. I had to put an extension tube on the end of the bellows to clear the vertical grip, but other than that it worked fine. Here's an outside shot...first is wide open, second is f11:
Peeping at both, there is a slight increase in sharpness stopped down, but it's really not that much. Sorry no crops...
I also took a shot of the cat (hey, who hasn't tested a lens on the cat?). Shot hand held, wide open, ISO 100. Guess I got the focus right on this one...
This is a straight RAW conversion, with NO PP. No sharpening!! The detail (to me anyway) is striking for a lens that dates to WWI. This is probably a testament the 1Ds as much as the lens, but still...I was pretty impressed.
Anyway, that's all I have hosted right now. This is a fun lens to play with! It LOVES bright sunlight. It can focus from macro to infinity, which is nice. The low contrast makes for a very different "look" than most lenses. The biggest drawback is just that's it's so slow. You either need a TON of light, or tripod/MLU/etc.
You don't list your country, but we don't have spanners in the states.
Funny you should ask about the cat...we don't know what he is, but Russian Blue was one of our guesses. We actually found him abandoned, mostly starved to death, with a bad eye infection down by a river. We were returning from Elkhorn Ghost Town, coming down the mountain when I saw him and his brothers/sisters on the river bank. Someone dumped their kittens there apparently. We managed to save him, but the other ones ran away and we couldn't save them. He recovered 100%, and he's been a great cat for the last couple of years. His personality isn't very "cat like"...he's emotionally kind of needy, and he's pretty vocal. He almost seems more dog like than cat like .
And about the spanner...I actually am in the US (Montana). I actually wasn't referring to a British wrench . The tool I was talking about has two prongs or forks that can be fitted to circular threaded rings with two notches cut in them...I've always called it a spanner, if there's another name for it I don't know what it is...
Scott Clark wrote:
Funny you should ask about the cat...we don't know what he is, but Russian Blue was one of our guesses. We actually found him abandoned, mostly starved to death, with a bad eye infection down by a river. We were returning from Elkhorn Ghost Town, coming down the mountain when I saw him and his brothers/sisters on the river bank. Someone dumped their kittens there apparently. We managed to save him, but the other ones ran away and we couldn't save them. He recovered 100%, and he's been a great cat for the last couple of years. His personality isn't very "cat like"...he's emotionally kind of needy, and he's pretty vocal. He almost seems more dog like than cat like .
And about the spanner...I actually am in the US (Montana). I actually wasn't referring to a British wrench . The tool I was talking about has two prongs or forks that can be fitted to circular threaded rings with two notches cut in them...I've always called it a spanner, if there's another name for it I don't know what it is......Show more →
A spanner wrench is exactly what it is. They tend to be as common as spokeshaves.
Scott Clark wrote:
Funny you should ask about the cat...we don't know what he is, but Russian Blue was one of our guesses. We actually found him abandoned, mostly starved to death, with a bad eye infection down by a river. We were returning from Elkhorn Ghost Town, coming down the mountain when I saw him and his brothers/sisters on the river bank. Someone dumped their kittens there apparently. We managed to save him, but the other ones ran away and we couldn't save them. He recovered 100%, and he's been a great cat for the last couple of years. His personality isn't very "cat like"...he's emotionally kind of needy, and he's pretty vocal. He almost seems more dog like than cat like .
And about the spanner...I actually am in the US (Montana). I actually wasn't referring to a British wrench . The tool I was talking about has two prongs or forks that can be fitted to circular threaded rings with two notches cut in them...I've always called it a spanner, if there's another name for it I don't know what it is......Show more →
Hmmm...more OT, but... He sounds very much like a Burmese. We have one & now that it's not acting odd (my wife saved it from a previous owner whose husband I am certain pounded the heck out of it), you pretty much described the typical Burmese behavior, more dog-like & quite vocal. The round ear tip is a hint, too. Does he happen to have short legs? He's also a proper color for Burmese.
claudermilk wrote:
Hmmm...more OT, but... He sounds very much like a Burmese. We have one & now that it's not acting odd (my wife saved it from a previous owner whose husband I am certain pounded the heck out of it), you pretty much described the typical Burmese behavior, more dog-like & quite vocal. The round ear tip is a hint, too. Does he happen to have short legs? He's also a proper color for Burmese.
Interesting. His legs don't seem particularly short to me...probably the same length as our tabby. I'll have to do some more research on cats one of these days... He's really a good cat. Our tabby on the other hand is kind of a jerk...I'm convinced he was a person in another life, and not a very pleasant one at that. He'll do petty things just to annoy us... just because he knows it will annoy us. He's getting old though (11)...he's mellowed a little in his old age.
On topic, I uploaded the rest of the pictures I took with the Kodak...
I have just seen this and would like to do something similar
Do you have a close up of the mount modifications?
Is this just an M42 extension tube on M42 bellows to an EOS adapter ?
If so I only need an extension tube and some time
All I modified was the extension tube, so it can be screwed into the M42 bellows. I normally have a 135/3.5 Super Tak on the bellows for macro work, so it's nice I can just swap it out for using this lens. I'll take a close up of it in the next couple of days if you want, although there isn't much to see. The lens itself is completely original...I could just remove it from the modified tube and put it back into a camera (if I had one).
If you're looking inside one of these old folding cameras, there's a ring that holds the lens to the board. It's notched so you can use a spanner to remove it. That's all that holds it in the camera. I just used the same retaining ring to hold it in the extension tube. There is a little metal plate inside the tube that supported the automatic aperture bar, and by sandwiching the lens/plate/retaining ring it all stays together. I did have to file the front of the tube and pound the plate farther forward to make it work though. Also had to grind the threads down inside the tube, and grind a couple of small notches to clear screws on the back of the lens shutter.
Whole thing took probably less than an hour to complete. The lens assembly (without camera) cost me $10, I forget what I paid for the tube (probably less than $10). The bellows I've had for a long time, but it wasn't cheap. OTOH, it's one of the (if not the best) M42 bellows you can buy. All in all a real bargain when you see the results . I love it.
I have cheap EF bellows and original Canon FD bellows, for macro shots (as yet unused)
after spotting this I opted for a rediculously cheap autographic 2A anastigmat f6.3 I found, and just needed to get an idea of what you did to achieve the lens mount
I will look for an FD/42mm adapter/tube and see where I go from there
So now I own 3 Kodaks (1 still to be delivered) and some film for not much more than the price of a couple of Big Macs
One with less than satisfactory bellows will donate the lens to the DSLR project and the best of the other 2 will be going to Bodie and Rhyolite with me next year loaded with real film
116 film was still inside the first camera when I opened it (oops!) and I have a couple of rolls of converted 120 to try out.
Due to the size and weight restictions I wont be able to take bellows next year - but I will be able to try a real turn of the century camera in an apropriate setting like Bodie
Many thanks to Scott for the push in the right direction
Yes, you are going to have a lot of fun with it . And yes, these things just love bright sunlight...they devour it . Looking at your initial results, it looks pretty sharp. I'm very curious to see how it does in the daylight. Please post more results when you have them.
We just got about a foot of snow on the ground last night...I can't wait until we have a nice sunny day to take mine out. All that light and high dynamic range is what this lens lives for. Also got started on my version 2.0...I bought a Vest Pocket Kodak (circa 1915). I disassembled it and removed the lens/shutter assembly. The camera is in pretty rough condition, but I did non-destructive surgery on it in case I ever want to put it back together again. This one is also an Anastigmat, but it's 84mm, also f7.7. Should be a nice focal length. Tiny little thing too...much smaller than the Junior I've been working with. I took the whole thing apart and cleaned it...lens looks to be in very good condition after getting the mushrooms out. I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to mount it yet...the register distance is pretty short (the VPK is really a pretty small camera) and using my bellows even fully collapsed I might not quite get infinity focus. I think if I mount it directly to an M42 body cap and then screw that into the bellows I'll be ok. Otherwise I'll have to come up with another solution. With the bellows at full extension, it'll make a heck of a macro lens though...I'll bet it's better than 2:1. At least 3:1 if not more...
The VPK is lower resolution and flarier than the other options here, isn't it? I've got a few different lenses en-route from a range of folding cameras to play with this week. Perhaps the ideal mount for these would perhaps be something like a LensBaby: a compact, braced flexitube that can be compressed for infinity focus or extended for macro, and also tilted to make use of the MF image circle.
hubsand wrote:
The VPK is lower resolution and flarier than the other options here, isn't it? I've got a few different lenses en-route from a range of folding cameras to play with this week. Perhaps the ideal mount for these would perhaps be something like a LensBaby: a compact, braced flexitube that can be compressed for infinity focus or extended for macro, and also tilted to make use of the MF image circle.
I'll find out soon...I still haven't played around with the VPK yet since I still need to find a way to mount it. I just haven't had time to play with it yet. Also keep in mind that there were (I think) 3 different lenses used in the VPK...the Anastigmat, Rapid Rectilinear, and a two-element meniscus lens. I would expect similar results to what I've gotten out of my larger Anastigmat with the smaller one...it's basically the same thing just scaled down. The meniscus lens has been used by quite a few people as a soft-focus lens...when removed from it's housing and used wide open it's *very* soft. The RR is similar I think. The image circle from any folder is huge, so they would all be pretty well suited to all kinds of movements. VPK lenses are small and light (even with the shutter mechanism) so it would be pretty well suited to being attached to a flexible housing...
I'm very curious to see how mine performs...if it works as well as the larger one, I'd be happy. The focal length is a somewhat more useful 84mm...the 130mm of the 1-A Junior lens is just a little long on my crop sensor camera, and it's a pain to use my bellows on my 1Ds so I don't usually use it.
One more thing...I just posted a gallery of images taken with the 130mm Anastigmat last night on my website at:
www.montanaphotos.net/kodak/
For the b&w conversions, all I did was convert them to greyscale...I didn't play with the levels at all...I wanted to preserve the original "look" this lens creates. The only adjustments I did to any of them were minor exposure tweaks when I converted from RAW...I tend to underexpose with this lens just a hair.
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