Author Topic: Lens adaptor.. (Read 7739 times)

Diane Peterson · « **on:** February 27, 2012, 07:11:20 PM »

I am trying to find out if there is such a thing as an adaptor that will adapt a lens for a Olympus 4/3 camera to an Olympus OM mount..I have a Lensbaby for my Olympus digital camera and I want to find an olympus film camera that I can adapt this too..I very rarely, if ever use digital and want to be able to use my Lensbaby composer with an olympus film camera..hope this makes sense!!

jojonas~ · « **Reply #1 on:** February 27, 2012, 07:38:19 PM »

I think I get what you mean. you want to use the lens you bought to your olympus four thirds camera on a olympus OM camera (or to that mountt atleast)

I have looked a bit at adaptors when I forst got my micro four thirds pen camera, but I can't say I've ever seen an adaptor that goes from digital camera mount so legacy stuff.

but don't they say; "there's an adapter for everything"? I faintly remember some place that could make custom order adapters.
depends on how much you're prepared to spend though. there's always tape, y'know. right, ed?

http://www.filmwasters.com/forum/index.php?topic=3856.msg43042#msg43042

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #2 on:** February 27, 2012, 07:59:34 PM »

now there's an idea!!

Francois · « **Reply #3 on:** February 27, 2012, 08:22:40 PM »

Well you know, they say that when in doubt, add more tape

Magnus · « **Reply #4 on:** February 27, 2012, 08:24:53 PM »

Nice one Jonas. Very Shabby chic!
Or is it crappy shit

Sandeha Lynch · « **Reply #5 on:** February 27, 2012, 08:25:40 PM »

If you can get a bodycap for the camera, and perhaps a close up tube for the 4/3 (if they should exist) you'd have the end parts for a bellows mounting on a macro rail. Old rails are often quite cheap.

Pete_R · « **Reply #6 on:** February 27, 2012, 10:47:38 PM »

Assuming the Lens Baby fits directly onto the 4/3 camera then it won't work on an SLR as the flange to film distance on the SLR is greater than on the 4/3. If you did fit it, then you would only be able to focus close up. Having said that, there are adapters about that get over the problem by having a glass element that corrects the focus but I don't know of one to do what you want.

That was of no help at all really was it...

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #7 on:** February 28, 2012, 12:12:18 AM »

Peter R.. definitely was of interest and help..makes me understand this stuff a little bit better..I did just find out my Lensbaby for my canon A-1 will sort of work on my old vintage Praktica..enough to take a shot anyway..thinking some Gorilla Tape is my best bet!! what would we do without "tape'?

..loving that red tape...

Darnley · « **Reply #8 on:** February 28, 2012, 12:32:07 AM »

Diane,

Did you try http://www.fotodiox.com/ ?
I have bought a couple of adapters from them before. Nothing fancy, but they work ok.

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #9 on:** February 28, 2012, 02:17:25 AM »

Jim..thank you so much..will check them out right now!!

Francois · « **Reply #10 on:** February 28, 2012, 03:01:39 PM »

That looks like a darn good link...

They even have adapters for M42 to Nikon F that have the glass correction lens!

Paul Mitchell · « **Reply #11 on:** February 28, 2012, 04:20:46 PM »

I've just bought one of their pro-shift adapters and (for the price) are excellent

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #12 on:** February 28, 2012, 05:30:57 PM »

I have been trying for 3 hours(really) to get them on the phone..looks like from their Amazon ad they will have what I need but want to talk to them first..

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #13 on:** February 28, 2012, 09:43:11 PM »

Just talked to the people at the link Jim sent me..they were very helpful but sadly enough they don't make an adaptor for the way I need one..I guess I will just keep searching....

Francois · « **Reply #14 on:** February 28, 2012, 10:34:47 PM »

And Lensbaby can't sell replacement parts for their lenses?

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #15 on:** February 29, 2012, 01:17:28 AM »

they wouldn't even consider selling me what I needed..called them yesterday!! oh well..guess there will be lots of tape in my future..

Francois · « **Reply #16 on:** February 29, 2012, 03:32:05 PM »

I got thinking about it before falling asleep last night. So correct me if I'm wrong...

Lensbaby are made in one model to fit all cameras. The only thing that differs is the lens mount.
For 4/3 cameras, the flange to sensor distance is pretty small... so they have to make up for it with a super thick lens mount.

Now the lens mount is most probably held by a few (probably 3) set screws that are visible on its side. Now removing these set screws would release the lens "bellows" from the mount.

Since the lens doesn't have any mechanical linkage, doing so would be quite safe.

If you go to an astronomy store, you can get what is aclled a T-mount. These are used to fit a camera body to a telescope. They have a central part with a M42 thread (usually) that you can connect to an eyepiece adapter tube. But if you loosen the 3 set screws on it, the central part comes out and you have a nice mount that can be attached to almost anything (I used one to make my soft focus lens).

Check it out, I'm pretty sure it'll work.

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #17 on:** February 29, 2012, 03:48:17 PM »

What would we do without your incredible brain!! You are a prince among men Francois!! As soon as I can go to Boise ( about a 3 hour drive) I will try to get something like this..Thank you so much..you are truly a genius!!

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #18 on:** February 29, 2012, 04:07:16 PM »

purely for demo purposes I am attaching a digital image of the back of my Nikon Lensbaby..basically it is the same as the one for my Olympus Lensbaby just the size of this part is a little bigger..the three black "spots" are the screws I am thinking you are talking about..

Francois · « **Reply #19 on:** February 29, 2012, 04:42:02 PM »

The could be at the back or on the side. If I were to build it, I would have chosen the side...

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #20 on:** February 29, 2012, 04:43:39 PM »

Do you think your idea would still be applicable??

astrobeck · « **Reply #21 on:** February 29, 2012, 05:07:44 PM »

It might work, but there are several sizes of t-adaptors for telescope/camera combos, depending upon what you are using.

Here's a scan of the front and back of one of mine that I use for the Pentax on one of my small refractors.

You can get them for around 25 dollars at amazon, B&H, Adorama, astromart, etc.
As you can see and as Francois indicated, it has a flange for the camera on one side and threads on the other.
You can also get different sized threaded adaptors for different diameters of optical tubes. There's bound to be one that will work for what you are trying to do Diane.

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #22 on:** February 29, 2012, 05:11:59 PM »

You guys are so wonderful!!
what or how would I phrase my querry for one that would work with my Olympus OM camera..( that I will buy as soon as I know I can do this!!??
I will go to amazon rather than drive 150 miles!!

astrobeck · « **Reply #23 on:** February 29, 2012, 05:24:04 PM »

After thinking this through, what about an adaptor made for it instead of Frankensteining something together.
http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-Adapter-Olympus-Thirds-Panasonic/dp/B002TSWTAA

I "think" this might do the trick.

astrobeck · « **Reply #24 on:** February 29, 2012, 05:26:03 PM »

ooops, may be not, that's the wrong way....still looking.

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #25 on:** February 29, 2012, 05:30:14 PM »

yea, I called them and they don't make one to go "that way"..

astrobeck · « **Reply #26 on:** February 29, 2012, 05:55:14 PM »

Diane, you should just get an Olympus regardless!
Check out my friend Gary Seronik's blog.
He's an astronomer and still uses film for a lot of his work.
He has a couple of Olympus' in his arsenal. An OM 10 and and OM-G
http://filmadvance.com/

This doesn't help your situation, but if you are considering cameras, his blog might help you make a decision.

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #27 on:** February 29, 2012, 05:57:20 PM »

Thank you so much Becky..I will go their right now!!

Sandeha Lynch · « **Reply #28 on:** February 29, 2012, 06:08:37 PM »

Cool suggestion, Francois.

I have some T-mount bits - must remember.

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #29 on:** February 29, 2012, 06:25:26 PM »

so...am I thinking about this correctly, you find a t-mount to fit your particular camera and then the lock screw holds the lens ( in my case the lensbaby) in place??

Mike (happyforest) · « **Reply #30 on:** February 29, 2012, 07:27:08 PM »

Not sure if these guys would be of any help, if the T-mount solution doesn't work.

http://www.srb-griturn.com/index.asp

They imply that the can custom make an adapter but it might be expensive.

Mike

Francois · « **Reply #31 on:** February 29, 2012, 10:13:26 PM »

Quote from: Diane Peterson on February 29, 2012, 06:25:26 PM

so...am I thinking about this correctly, you find a t-mount to fit your particular camera and then the lock screw holds the lens ( in my case the lensbaby) in place??

That's right. You remove the useless bit on the lensbaby and replace it by a telescope part.

The ones I use are similar to this

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #32 on:** February 29, 2012, 11:34:47 PM »

wondeful! Now to find the right t-mount!! Thank you Francois!

Alan · « **Reply #33 on:** March 02, 2012, 02:13:51 PM »

Quote from: Diane Peterson on February 27, 2012, 07:11:20 PM

I am trying to find out if there is such a thing as an adaptor that will adapt a lens for a Olympus 4/3 camera to an Olympus OM mount..I have a Lensbaby for my Olympus digital camera and I want to find an olympus film camera that I can adapt this too..I very rarely, if ever use digital and want to be able to use my Lensbaby composer with an olympus film camera..hope this makes sense!!

Hi Diane,

just reading this now - you are not gonna get this to work !

the registry distance of your 4/3 lens should be 38.67mm and the
olympus om registry distance is 46mm.

so your 4/3 lens needs to be mounted 38.67mm from the film plane but the
mount on the om body is 46mm!

well you can mount it but you wll not get focus . . .

you can work it the other way though - almost all lenses can mount on to
the 4/3 system as most registry distances from popular lenses are greater
than 38.67mm ! and because all the focal lengths are doubled with the 4/3
system . . . a 250mm lens would be 500mm on the 4/3 . . . sorry im rambling.

Alan · « **Reply #34 on:** March 02, 2012, 02:31:02 PM »

oh sorry forgot to mention that there is probably a glass element
on the rear of the lens baby so if you remove that to use the bellows
it wouldnt work too well or at all.

Francois · « **Reply #35 on:** March 02, 2012, 03:35:17 PM »

Actually, the Lensbaby is built a bit like the Tamron Adaptall Lenses: they make one lens to fit the registration distance of all bodies and use a custom spacing to fill in the space. That's the only way they can produce them for so many different cameras without custom making one for every model...

There are two worse case scenarios that could happen here:
The lens focuses beyond infinity so you have to compress it all the time to get infinity focus.
Or the lens can only focus below infinity... then you have a permanent macro lens.

Alan · « **Reply #36 on:** March 02, 2012, 04:51:58 PM »

ah - i see!

never used a ~~baby lens~~ sorry lens baby

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #37 on:** March 02, 2012, 05:29:33 PM »

you lost me after I said "thank you Francois"..I know I can hold the lensbaby lens up to my different cameras and I get kinda the look I am after..just that " holding it up to"..isn't very comfortable..so are we now saying that this won't work at all with a t-mount or

?

Francois · « **Reply #38 on:** March 02, 2012, 09:24:21 PM »

Yes it will work. You might have to squeeze the bellows a bit to reach infinity... but it will work.

Lets get technical for the sake of understanding what's going on here.

The lens baby is a universal lens. It's made to fit anything. The only thing that changes is the lens mount. Now, the thinner the body (or more precisely the distance from the front of the camera to the sensor or film plane), the thicker the spacer must be.

Now, the distance required for the Olympus four thirds format is 38.67 mm. But the lens can be bought in a version for Nikon which needs a distance of 46.50 mm. Nikon has one of the greatest distances of all cameras on the market. This means that for using the lens with the 4/3 mount, it would need to be recessed inside the camera by a distance of 7.83mm which is clearly impossible. Now, if you remove the 4/3 mount and replace it by a universal T-mount, the thickness will be a lot less giving you the possibility to mount it to almost anything (probably except Leica R... but who cares!).

Now, if I just knew the thickness of their 4/3 mount and to what camera it will be mounted, I could probably fairly easily predict if it will focus beyond or below infinity. If it focuses below infinity, it means the lens will only be useable as a close-up lens. If not, then it means that the "infinity setting" could be at "10 meters" or something like that. All it would mean is that the lens would not focus as closely as it's supposed to and is fuzzy when set at the "infinity mark". But since this is a flexible lens, it's not a problem.

Wikipedia has a nice article on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance

Diane Peterson · « **Reply #39 on:** March 02, 2012, 11:10:41 PM »

I actually understood that..amazing.. I will try it out as soon as I can get somehwere to find at-mount or maybe just order on amazon..I have lensbabies for Nikon,Canon and minolta..also the Olympus of course..something should work...

..thank you..AGAIN Francois!

Author Topic: Lens adaptor.. (Read 7739 times)

Darnley

astrobeck

astrobeck

astrobeck

astrobeck