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1

Not $1000

I use a $150 Lensbaby lens and have had great results with it. I would think that would be a lot sturdier than something handmade.

2

great article

I love a DIY how to - even if I did read it years late!

3

Very interesting. But

Very interesting. But doesn't the bellows change a lens into a close-focus macro lens? Can you tell what kind of lense did you use (focal lenght)?
Thanks

4

lens focal length

Do you recommend any particular focal length for this hack? Wide angle, normal, telephoto?

5

The lens....

What do you mean by oversized lens?

6

exellent

exellent

7

tilt and shift

Very neat and cheap , Nice job !

8

you rock!

thanx

9

thank you!

Very cool DIY, when I have the time I am going to try this out!

10

$150 Lens Baby

Yes,, but the lens baby is either tilt OR shift...not both.... ??

11

AWESOME

I will build this!

12

andres salas

aso_70@hotmail.com
Hi from Spain, i bought a m42 pentacom 50mm for my slr pentax and i try to do it.
well, i´ll see that it i separate the lens from camera, i obtain a blurry image, more distance more blurry, i dont know how i can focus whith this tecnic.i only focus if i have a object very closer, if fact i have a rings for macro that do this, but i cannot use your tecnic.
Can you help me?
thanks

13

4ALL

You have to use a mid-format lens (a Biometar 80/2.8 is an ideal one; it's the one used by the author here).
There are 2 ways of focusing: by lengthening/shortening the bellows and by turning the focus ring on the lens itself.

14

help?

I just made this. I spent a lot of time on it only to be disapointed. It seems like the farther away I get the more in focus it becomes. Any help?

15

Hey!

That's really neat! I'm linking to it from my blog, chrishokeblog.com.

16

lenses for tilt/shift

mir38 60mm at 3.5 work for this?

17

how to attach?

I'm confused on one part. Does the original lens actually screw back into the camera body, or does the plunger take up space between the back of the original lens and the camera body? If the latter, how do you attach the entire thing to the camera?

Thanks,
Mike

18

Replyng to Mike

Mike (12/25/2009) - The lens cap glues to the bellows, which fits to the lens. The Lens cap (with a cener cut out) is what attaches to the camera body. I have a Yashica ML 50mm 1:1:9 I'm going to use for this. Wish me luck y'all!

19

Tilt and shift

A brilient articel and I will be trinnig it soon.Paul

20

Thanks for the lens tip!

It reminds me of the make-do elemental cameras of Miroslav Tichy, but much nicer, of course. Very hands-on and a good hack! I'll be trying it someday when I have access to the lens you are using.

21

Easily Removeable?

Hey, does this MOD easily detach? If not would it fit inside of this case with the lens on?:http://www.pelicanonline-ralphs.com/1200-case.htm

22

tilt lens

brilliant thank you for this advice !!

23

Lens baby

i have a lens baby composer which is already a tilt lens... can i use that instead of the improvised tilt lens? if your familiar with that kind of lens, can you give me tips on how to achive this kind of photos.. than you very much!

24

Doesn't work

i've tried this hack with several lenses... a Nikon 50mm 1.4, a Sigma 28-90mm 3.5-5.6, and a 80mm 2.8. None of the lenses work. Nothing is in focus in any of the lenses, and no matter how much I tilt, shit, or focus, nothing is in focus. The lens is about 4 inches from the CCD on my Nikon D90. Any help??

A

25

Oversized lens

hello there. can you explain me what do you mean by "Oversized lens".???? please reply to katambe@iol.pt. thanks!

26

oversized

i agree, i want to make one of these for a magazine spread, but i have no idea what lens to get. help!

27

even easier

Before going through the whole process of making the diy tilt/shift bellows, it could be a good idea to get comfortable with it in 1 minute by just detaching any lens you choose from your camera body and applying tilt/shift hand-held - you can also get really good results, some examples here.

eyenorth.co.cc

28

Tilt-shift camera

Hi!
I've loved your article and I would like to build my own tilt-shift lense.
So I would like to know wich Carl Zeiss lense you have used to built yours.
Thank you!

29

Building

you sure this gonna work??

30

Great Tutorial

I thought this tutorial was excellent. I'm going to give this a try for fun before purchasing the real deal. Thanks! http://www.tomhallphotography.com.au

31

lens ring

Great article. Re: "I recommend finding something sturdier than hot glue and cardboard to hold it together": Are you using something other than cardboard and hot glue now? If so, what? Thanks.

32

Excellent tutorial, many thanks!

This s a great and simple design using a decent lens. Using a poor quality lens might get the user even closer to what Lensbabies produce.

However, I noticed that many questions and some of the negative comments here are mainly due to the fact that the article author assumed some knowledge and understanding of how the camera optics work. Of course not every amateur photographer (like myself) has to know that, but then the author could not include the textbook knowledge in a blog article on a specialist website.

A medium format lens is specified with explanation why this should be done, so why are you using 35mm lenses (for shallower camera bodies with much smaller distance from the back of the lens to the film/sensor) and then say it does not work?

Please, fellow amateur readers, before you make a negative comment you may be ashamed of later, first read the text carefully, then ask or even try to check yourself anything you do not understand. Look at the name of this website - the author can assume some expertise of the readers. Sorry to be critical ... we all need to learn things sometimes.

Best wishes,
TC

33

MADE ONE :-)

Made one using a 80mm lens that came with my Salyut-C (older kiev 88 model) , used a grease boot for a c.v. joint instead of the plunger as most of the new plungers are not of a bellows design, and instead of cardboard back i used a modified Plastic Tea cup for thermos flask to make it more rigid and also to extend the mounting out past the built in flash of my nikon D70 . I also made a suitable sized hole in the cap that came with the lens (camera side of lens) and mounted that on the front so i could detach the lens from the bellows and possibly replace with different lens. At the minute works great as a macro lens (equivalent lens with extension tubes) . Tried some other lenses just holding them and got fantastic macro capability with all the lens i tried even lens for APS sized sensors , although need to figure out another way of connecting these to my improvised cap mount on the front of the bellows. Still have to test the tilt/shift capability even if this doesn't work i'm well happy with the macro capability especially since it cost me a total of 17 euros , and has turned a 6x6 medium format lens which was sitting in its case into something i can use with my Digital SLR , not to mention the joy you get when you make something like this and it actually works , Thanks Dennison :-)

35

What lens would you recommend?

What lens did you use? A friend of mine gave this hack a try with a 80mm Carl Zeis PentaconSIX lens (that some people say you've used here) but the effects weren't as good. In particular, he said the lens did its job on short distances but for landsapes when the TS capabilities would be most prominent it didn't work (images came out normal or blurred). It may be that his photographic skills weren't as good, but from a recent chat about it we came to the conclusion that it was either some construction flaws in his DIY project or the lens.

I'm preparing to use M42 photo bellows + m42-canon adapter with some Pentacon6 lens (120mm BIOMETAR?)... Do you think it will do the trick?

j1a2s3h4i5u6 at w3p4.p000l (please do remove the numbers 123456 34000 and put @ instead of "at")

36

Medium Format camera lens

I cannot find a medium format camera lens that's under $100 anywhere, including Ebay or Shop Goodwill online. I was hoping to make this tilt-shift lens, but I just cannot afford it. :-(

37

oversized lenses

I was just playing with some lenses from the Diana F+ line and I think this home-made system would with some of those. I haven't had a chance to make the full mount yet, but by taking the lens off my Canon EOS Rebel and holding the Diana lenses at a short distance I could get a reasonably good focus with a few of them, in particular the 110mm telephoto lens. Keep in mind that they are plastic 'lomography' lenses, so the focus is on the soft side, but they're a lot cheaper than most of the Zeis lenses I've seen.

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