ADSLR 35 mm lens on MFDVC?

[Dick Roadnight]

There are at least three very good reasons not to use 35mm ASLR lenses on medium Format Digital View Cameras:

Inability to focus to infinity.
No Shutter.
Insufficient image circle.

35mm lenses are not normally assembled as a kit of parts, allowing you to discard the focussing mechanism, but you can do just that with the Novoflex follow-focus system.

I have the 400 mm and 640 mm lens heads... they are not tele-focal, and the aperture diaphragm is inches behind the rear element, and nearly a foot in front of the camera. This would make it easy to fit in a lens board or "between the elements" shutter... and get infinity focus.

I think that there would be stacks of image circle.

For macro photography 35mm lenses on MF are no problem, and you can reverse or combine them for higher magnification, but has anyone any knowledge or experience of infinity focus on MF with 35 mm Analog camera lenses?

[jing q]

have you seen the thread on the 85mm f1.2 Canon L lens on a mamiya body? the images look gorgeous.
why would you say that using a 35mm lens on a medium format back is a bad idea? Aren't 35mm lens made for more demanding resolutions anyway

[Dick Roadnight]

have you seen the thread on the 85mm f1.2 Canon L lens on a mamiya body? the images look gorgeous.
why would you say that using a 35mm lens on a medium format back is a bad idea? Aren't 35mm lens made for more demanding resolutions anyway

I searched for that thread, but did not find it.

I am saying that using 35 mm lenses on DF digital backs is a good idea in the few cases when it is possible.

When I upgraded from Nikon to Hasselblad, I thought that the best way to get a good 35mm slide was to take some scissors to a Hasselblad slide.

Many 35mm lenses were able to produce far more resolution than even the best film... why are Leica making lenses for Panasonic?

Perhaps you can get the 35mm lens mounts inside the throat of the MFDSLR's, to get infinity focus, but this is not a problem when using MF digibacks with 35mm lenses.

The Sinar M has a focal plane shutter, which would solve the shutter problem.

Some of the early low res digibacks were very small, and some 35mm lenses might have had enough image circle for some of them.

[Carsten W]

Some of the early low res digibacks were very small, and some 35mm lenses might have had enough image circle for some of them.

I guess most 35mm lenses have enough image circle to cover the early 24x36mm sensors

More seriously, some 35mm lenses have enough image circle to cover MF. Here is a link to a thread started by a guy who converted an FD 85L  f/1.2 to Mamiya 645 mount:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/771979

The results wide open are wild! Although probably not everyone's taste.

[jeremydillon]

I'd like to see someone come up with a way of putting the new canon 17mm tilt shift lens in front of a medium format sensor. It already covers 36x48mm (24x36 with 12mm shift up and down)

[Dick Roadnight]

I'd like to see someone come up with a way of putting the new canon 17mm tilt shift lens in front of a medium format sensor. It already covers 36x48mm (24x36 with 12mm shift up and down)

To get infinity focus with a MFDSLR you would have to lock the mirror up and mount the lens inside the camera, but that is not likely to be possible with a shift lens.

To make it economically viable, you have to avoid buying £30K's worth of kit to save buying a £5k lens. (If anyone makes one that wide).

You could put a view camera adaptor on the front of a digiback, an adaptor the right depth to give you infinity focus (or a pancake camera) on that, a shutter big enough to cover the rear element on that, and an adaptor for the lens on that - this would work with live view. This would use the helical focusing on the lens, and would not allow you to focus view camera lenses.

I already have a shutter to mount on a P3 lensboard for microscope-screw macro lenses - this is a No1 shutter, and might be big enough. One could do something sophisticated like taping two lensboards and a spacer/shim together.

The sinar P3 is an open system, so anyone can market P3 lensboard compatible cameras.

Most of the viable ways to do this would involve mounting it on a view camera - so you would get no benefit from the shift.

If you only just have enough image circle, you would not be able to use shift (without vignetting) anyway.