Prime slr lens on a crown graphic??!

[Jim Jones]

According to Paul-Henry van Hasbroeck in The Leica: a History Illustrating Every Model and Accessory, The 135mm f/4.5 Elmar, designed by Berek in the early 1920s for 9/12cm plates, was adapted to 35mm Leicas in 1931. It mounted directly on the camera. The first reflex housing came in 1933.

[rdenney]

I recall that the longer lenses of the era were not telephoto designs, but rather just normal lenses of longer focal length mounted as a "head" on the end of a focusing barrel. Many of these were removable from the focus barrel just by unscrewing them, to be used on copier setups and enlargers. I've seen Olympia Sonnars mounted the same way. Once out of their focus barrels, they should have coverage closer to what one would expect for the focal length.

Rick "seeing mostly tessar and sonnar variations in these types of lenses" Denney

[alexn]

Yeah for sure.. Mount your 35mm Nikkor lens 49mm from the focal plane with the lens cap on, stop it down to F/16. compose the tiny image on the massive ground glass then load your ISO 400 film. Remove the dark slide, then take the lens cap completely off and replace it again within 1/500th of a second.

Should work a treat.

Massive mechanical vignetting is still considered artsy... Right?

[Ole Tjugen]

some of the older longer focal length Leica lenses will cover 4x5 I am tokld. These would be in the tthe 90mm and 135mm Elmars and the early Telyets. I could be wrong as this is anicdotal. However these lenses were designed to work with the glass elements mounted in a focusing mount and used with accessory mirror box (Visoflex), so there might be enough working room for a bellows camera.

But again, you will need a camera body with a focal plane shutter.

A Graflex Reflex with Leica lenses sounds interesting . . .

In the end, it will be easier to sell-off or trade the SLR lenses and buy something that will work without drama..

You are correct, I have unscrewed the business part of a Leitz Hektor 135mm from the extension tube and mounted it on a Speed Graphic. It works, and it covers.

But those are quite standard tessar-type lenses mounted on a long tube for 35mm use. Modern SLR lenses tend to be a lot more complex, and more optimised for the image circle needed for the film/sensor size they are designed for.

So to the original question, my vote is on the "Forget it" side.

[TimmyMac]

Yeah for sure.. Mount your 35mm Nikkor lens 49mm from the focal plane with the lens cap on, stop it down to F/16. compose the tiny image on the massive ground glass then load your ISO 400 film. Remove the dark slide, then take the lens cap completely off and replace it again within 1/500th of a second.

Should work a treat.

Massive mechanical vignetting is still considered artsy... Right?

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.

[jnantz]

why not take a piece of foam core,
reverse or front mount the lens on it
and then on your camera and see if it works.
making lensboard for your camera will take about 30seconds
friction mount the lens so you can get it back far enough ...

threads like this make me laugh, its like asking
if it is possible to make a dark cloth out of
a dark-cloth .. or is it possible to use a regular roll film back on a graflex slr ..
and the answer is, it depends, why don't you try and see if it works
for what you want to use it for ...

good luck !
john

[E. von Hoegh]

1.) Ask incredibly stupid question that betrays your profound ignorance of the subject
2.) Argue with the answers you get from people who actually do know what they are talking about.
3.) Insist that your way will work.
4.) Repeat 2.) and 3.) until people stop responding.

[petrochemist]

1.) Ask incredibly stupid question that betrays your profound ignorance of the subject
2.) Argue with the answers you get from people who actually do know what they are talking about.
3.) Insist that your way will work.
4.) Repeat 2.) and 3.) until people stop responding.

Whilst the OP MAY have been ignorant of the limitations, he hasn't posted in this thread since page 1. No one has claimed that SLR lenses will work for normal landscape/portrait photography.

Reading through the replies it is clear that Jim Jones has experience in using small format lenses on large format systems and within it's limitations (close up work ONLY) has managed to get it to work. He even explains a way to get round the shutter problems. I would say this personal experience rates somewhat above the simple won't work from 'people who actually know what they are talking about'.

There have been at least 5 different people replying that it CAN be made to work for macro, which is a field of photography that leaves lots of room for experimenting with oddball lenses. Whilst I've not yet experimented with LF macro I have used lenses which are not designed to cover the sensor in my DSLR macro and the same optical laws apply.

One of my main interests in LF is that it allows me to experiment with things:
Lens boards allow me to mount lenses (or pin holes) that are not designed for one particular make of camera.
I don't have to use mass produced film but can experiment with historical processes, or printing papers... (Many of these are less sensitive and require MUCH longer exposures - no shutter required).
I can even but (or make) an adapter to mount a DSLR in place of the focusing screen, take multiple shots & stitch them together to make a pseudo large format digital back.

[E. von Hoegh]

Using the same linkages the camera uses to adjust it, would work fine with my old PK lenses.

I know it's not a convenient arrangement but a single mount could be suitable for all of a Togs SLR lenses (mine cover multiple filter sizes) and it would allow a fish eye to mount (most have no filter ring). If nothing else after focusing & framing the front lens board could be removed to adjust the aperture then refitted.

I suspect quite a few LF Togs also have SLR set-ups even if they don't use them anymore. So re-using 35mm lenses is a cheap option - a little awkwardness is not such a big price to pay, LF is not a high speed photography option after all!

Ummmm. O.K. Have fun!

[Dan Fromm]

Whilst the OP MAY have been ignorant of the limitations, he hasn't posted in this thread since page 1. No one has claimed that SLR lenses will work for normal landscape/portrait photography.

Reading through the replies it is clear that Jim Jones has experience in using small format lenses on large format systems and within it's limitations (close up work ONLY) has managed to get it to work. He even explains a way to get round the shutter problems. I would say this personal experience rates somewhat above the simple won't work from 'people who actually know what they are talking about'.

There have been at least 5 different people replying that it CAN be made to work for macro, which is a field of photography that leaves lots of room for experimenting with oddball lenses. Whilst I've not yet experimented with LF macro I have used lenses which are not designed to cover the sensor in my DSLR macro and the same optical laws apply.

One of my main interests in LF is that it allows me to experiment with things:
Lens boards allow me to mount lenses (or pin holes) that are not designed for one particular make of camera.
I don't have to use mass produced film but can experiment with historical processes, or printing papers... (Many of these are less sensitive and require MUCH longer exposures - no shutter required).
I can even but (or make) an adapter to mount a DSLR in place of the focusing screen, take multiple shots & stitch them together to make a pseudo large format digital back.

That's nice. What does anything you wrote have to do with how to use a lens, any lens, including a pinhole, on a press or technical or view camera?

Photomacrography -- shooting above 1:1 -- with any format, including tiny chip digital, is exacting and requires very good optics, not any old oddball lens. When I decided that I didn't want to trek into our local museum to borrow the use of a Photomakroscope and set out to build an equivalent rig, there was a lot of nonsense in the air about which lenses might do what I thought I needed. The nonsense pretty well drowned out the solid good advice (Luminar. Photar. Macro-Nikkor.) and mistaken bad news (people like me can't afford Luminars, ...) I found. So I experimented a lot, tried a lot of lenses. If I'd known then what I now know about what I was trying to accomplish and how best to do it, I'd have reversed my 55/2.8 MicroNikkor AIS and got to work. Or, I'd have waited patiently for a Luminar or Photar or Macro-Nikkor or 100/6.3 Neupolar that would do what I needed to turn up at an affordable price.

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. Wishful thinking, chest-beating, and saying "I want to experiment" won't make it work.