Will the Calumet/Fujinon Franken-lens work?

[ashlee52]

Sometime a while ago I bought a camera on Ebay that came with a 210 mm lens. I eventually realized that what I have is a Calumet Caltar IIs front cell and a Fujinon (or possibly Nikon) rear cell. I realized this when I noticed that the front cell says made in Germany, while the rear cell says Made in Japan. I know the front cell is a 210, the rear cell isn't marked but looks like it should be from a 210. I can focus the lens normally and through a loupe it looks to be resolving fairly well.

Does the balanced nature of plasmat designs suggest that this lens should be usable, or are the design differences between makers large enough to make using this poor thing unwise?

[Daniel Stone]

this little lens might just test your "resolve" :).

Edward Weston made his own f-stops, and look, he created that wonderful picture of a pepper, and others I might not know about.

Photography tools don't have to be perfect, they just have to work(and even then, not always perfectly ;)).

test it out, and show some results of what it can do!

-Dan

[Michael Graves]

Such a combination would suck at shooting optical test targets. It might work great for actual photography. Try it and see. I love playing with that sort of thing. I've combined the front element from my 240 with the rear of my 210 with very pleasing results. Odd combination....it made for a longer focal length. If I had any idea why, I'd tell you.

[E. von Hoegh]

Sometime a while ago I bought a camera on Ebay that came with a 210 mm lens. I eventually realized that what I have is a Calumet Caltar IIs front cell and a Fujinon (or possibly Nikon) rear cell. I realized this when I noticed that the front cell says made in Germany, while the rear cell says Made in Japan. I know the front cell is a 210, the rear cell isn't marked but looks like it should be from a 210. I can focus the lens normally and through a loupe it looks to be resolving fairly well.

Does the balanced nature of plasmat designs suggest that this lens should be usable, or are the design differences between makers large enough to make using this poor thing unwise?

There's only one way to find out. Take a shot or three with it. It may not be "right" but you may like it, and that is all that matters.

Let us know what you get.