Filmwasters
Which Board? => Main Forum => : Fragomeni May 31, 2011, 12:07:04 AM
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Hi all. I wanted to share some homebrew lenses I've been working on which have been largely inspired by some of the people on this forum including Ed Wenn, Lawrie to name a couple who have helped me via email outside of the forum. Anyway, I've been working with found optics and homebrew lenses for a long time but haven't done much with it in a while. After finding my way here and reading many of the posts on the homemade lenses many of the members here have put together I was inspired to pick it back up. I don't have uploadable sample images from these yet as I've had to replace my scanner and the new one isn't set up yet. I've printed some images made with these and they are up at a Gallery in Phoenix for June so when they're back or when I print more I'll scan the prints.
Anyway, here's a taste of what I've been up to:
I do a lot of hybrid work so my lenses are made for both digital and analog cameras.
I'm linking to the posts for each in the Homebrew Blog section of my website (http://www.francescofragomeni.com/homebrew-blog/) because I can't seem to post any images here without them being massive.
This lens (http://www.francescofragomeni.com/homebrew-blog/2011/5/24/1925-kodak-vest-pocket-2011-lumix-gf1-hybrid.html) was made to breath new life into an old Kodak Vest Pocket 127 camera. It's more of a TTL rig then a lens because it joins the lens and bellows section of the Kodak Vest Pocket to the sensor of the GF1. It was a simple mod done with a body cap, black matte board, hot glue and some gaffers tape. You can get 127 film these days but it is scarce and often expensive. This little mod lets me use the vintage camera in a new way. It works quite well.
The second is a 180mm f2 single element lens (http://www.francescofragomeni.com/homebrew-blog/2011/5/25/180mm-f20-single-element-lens-on-graflex-super-d.html) fitted to a Graflex Super D 4x5. This was inspired in part by the popularity of using the Aero Ektar on Speed Graphics and a modified Graflex Super D design that allows use of the Aero Ektar. I wanted to find a way to pair an even faster lens with the Super D. This beats the f2.5 Aero Ektar by a long shot and as a single element lens it brings in a lot of the kinds of aberrations that I love and it also has great fluffy bokeh.
The last is a project that I've been working on for some time. The details can be found on my website so I'll defer to that rather then writing it all here but in short. It is a 90mm f2.4 lens (http://www.francescofragomeni.com/homebrew-blog/2011/5/30/90mm-f24-rangefinder-calibrated-lens-in-shutter.html) in Copal 1 shutter calibrated to a rangefinder cam that pair it with a Horseman 980 technical camera. This is one of my favorites so far.
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thanks for sharing! I've been at your site looking at the camera porn section before.
I'm thinking that it will sure be interesting to see the results from these combos~
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Nice work Francesco!
One more lens hacker on Filmwasters... yeah! :)
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Some really interesting stuff you've got going on there Francesco. I'm really keen to see the results from your 2 film cameras. Especially the big graflex beastie.
Just a friendly heads-up on the site's content rules ...
This lens was made to breath new life into an old Kodak Vest Pocket 127 camera. It's more of a TTL rig then a lens because it joins the lens and bellows section of the Kodak Vest Pocket to the sensor of the GF1.
Probably best to avoid items relating to digital cameras in the future :)
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Thanks for the encouragement everyone! It's been really fun putting these together and gets addictive. I need to stop building stuff and go photograph with them haha! Hopefully when the scanner is up and running I'll be able to post some sample images.
Probably best to avoid items relating to digital cameras in the future
Thanks for the heads up! Didn't mean to break the rules! Long live film!!!
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What an inspiration! I'm really interested in seeing what you're able to capture, particularly with your Graflex / 180mm combo! Cheers!
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Hey Francesco! Good to see you posting here and keeping us up to date with your experiments. Thanks for taking the time. Good luck with all your hacking and get that scanner sorted out pronto so we can see some images ;)
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Very nice, this is right up my street. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the results!