Prime slr lens on a crown graphic??!

[alexn]

Easier just to find an old FM10, take the back off and gaffers tape it to the front standard of the Crown. Then you have a shutter and aperture control built right in.

Awesome plan.. Love the implementation of gaffers tape in order to use a lens designed for 35x24mm film on 90x120 film!

As the old saying goes.
If it moves from where it needs to be but doesnt : Gaffers Tape
If it wont move from where it is and needs to : WD40

[gth]

We need an exploding brain "smiley"....

/gth

[petrochemist]

But this has nothing to do with trying to use a lens made for a camera with a short flange to film distance on a camera with a long minimum flange to film distance at infinity. That doesn't work.

Indeed 'at Infinity' It won't. The OP did not specify if they were referring to distant subjects, no-one else has suggested it would work for distant subjects.

[Leigh]

...they should have coverage closer to what one would expect for the focal length.

Hmmm...

I was not aware of a mathematical relationship between focal length and coverage.

Could you please expound?

- Leigh

[Leigh]

The OP did not specify if they were referring to distant subjects...

The OP asked if he could "utilize" his Nikon lenses on LF, without qualification.

My interpretation of that question does not restrict the subject location to near or far, but implies both.

- Leigh

[Jack Dahlgren]

Hmmm...

I was not aware of a mathematical relationship between focal length and coverage.

Could you please expound?

- Leigh

Leigh,

Surely you are aware that the geometry of any given lens design scales with focal length. Because the angular coverage is similar across different focal lengths of a similar design, increasing focal length necessarily increases the coverage through the principle of similar triangles.

Certainly this does not hold true across different designs (ie Tessar vs Plasmat), but it is generally a true and proportional relationship with only minor deviation from the ideal.

Look at the lens coverage table here for some examples:

http://www.ebonycamera.com/articles/lenses.html

[ashlee52]

Hey, I use Nikon lenses on my 4x5's all the time.

My favorite is the 210mm F5.6, but I also like the 135mm f 5.6 and the 90mm f 8.0....

No problem with coverage at all. But they are a bitch to mount on my F3.

[Tim Meisburger]

This is a hilarious thread! I cannot look away....

[Leigh]

Then 8mm movie camera lenses should be even more difficult to use, but they do give full frame coverage when reverse mounted on a 4x5, and lots of magnification.

Well, let's see...

The frame size of 8mm movie film is 4.8mm x 3.5mm.
Using the diagonal to define the standard lens size yields 5.94mm, which I'll call 6mm.

To enlarge its coverage area to 4x5 film requires a magnification of 29x (= MAX(4"/3.5mm, 5"/4.8mm)).

We know from standard photographic optics that
1/f = 1/Di + 1/Ds, where f is the focal length, Di and Ds are the distance to the image and the subject

We also know that the distances are related by the magnification:
m = Di/Ds, so Di = m * Ds

Solving these equations for f = 6mm and m = 29 yields
Ds = 6.207mm and
Di = 180mm

So the subject will be ~6.2mm in front of the lens' front principle plane, which is typically inside the lens assembly.

Perhaps you consider a working distance of less than 1/4" to be adequate, but I don't.

- Leigh

N.B. Whether a lens is used in its normal position or reversed has absolutely no bearing on the calculations.
The reason for reversing it is to put the magnification within the range for which the lens design is optimized.

Note:
The calculations are based on standard thin-lens equations simplified by the assumption that the first and second
principle planes are coincident. While this is not true in a compound lens, the error from calculations based on
separation of the two planes is insignificant.

[petrochemist]

Well, let's see...

The frame size of 8mm movie film is 4.8mm x 3.5mm.
Using the diagonal to define the standard lens size yields 5.94mm, which I'll call 6mm.

To enlarge its coverage area to 4x5 film requires a magnification of 29x (= MAX(4"/3.5mm, 5"/4.8mm)).

We know from standard photographic optics that
1/f = 1/Di + 1/Ds, where f is the focal length, Di and Ds are the distance to the image and the subject

We also know that the distances are related by the magnification:
m = Di/Ds, so Di = m * Ds

Solving these equations for f = 6mm and m = 29 yields
Ds = 6.207mm and
Di = 180mm

So the subject will be ~6.2mm in front of the lens' front principle plane, which is typically inside the lens assembly.

Perhaps you consider a working distance of less than 1/4" to be adequate, but I don't.

- Leigh

N.B. Whether a lens is used in its normal position or reversed has absolutely no bearing on the calculations.
The reason for reversing it is to put the magnification within the range for which the lens design is optimized.

Note:
The calculations are based on standard thin-lens equations simplified by the assumption that the first and second
principle planes are coincident. While this is not true in a compound lens, the error from calculations based on
separation of the two planes is insignificant.

Your formulae are for simple lenses. Telephoto & retrofocus designs do not follow them.
For macro work a reversed lens will focus approximately where the normal film/sensor plane is (~45mm for most SLRs less for smaller formats)
Yes the working distance is minimal but for the magnification achieved it will pretty much have to be.
1/4" is certainly a pain to work with - but my microscope won't focus half that far out even at the lowest magnification (the one at work will just)