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New Frankenlens for my Alpa :)

thrice

Active member
Just have to CNC the mount which I have created the 3d model for.
I 3D printed a prototype mount which worked fine and allowed me to tweak the flange distance to get it just right.

Anyhoo, it's a Mamiya 110/2.8. I've modified a fotoman helical to take the slightly larger Seiko shutter (not a copal #1 size).

Anyone who ever shot this lens on the RZ knows how good it is. I'm looking forward to using it with the groundglass on my SWA.
 

tjv

Active member
Tell us more about the way you are designing / building the mount. Sounds interesting!
 

thrice

Active member
I designed it quite easily in tinkercad. Then I just 3d print the model, mount the helical, and if all is hunky dory I send the same model to the CNC place to be milled out of aluminium.

I made one prototype but it was about 2mm too long. Since these take a long time to print and you are supposed to monitor the printer more or less all the time it has taken me a long time to get around to printing the next prototype, but I should be able to do it tomorrow.

Obviously the print will be matte black and not orange :p I'll then flock the interior.
 

thrice

Active member
A couple of tweaks done to the 3D model so that it prints nicely. Also made it SB17 so I can use my tilting adapter. Here's an f/2.8 sample shot, about 3 degrees of swing to get both people in focus:



and here's a 100% crop:



No sharpening applied.
Some of you might ask why not just get an RZ67 with the phase one adapter - well that would require carrying another camera and I wouldn't be able to use tilt. The lens gets a hard vignette from the camera body before it runs out of well-illuminated image circle.
 
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ondebanks

Member
Anyhoo, it's a Mamiya 110/2.8. I've modified a fotoman helical to take the slightly larger Seiko shutter (not a copal #1 size).
I instantly recognised it as a 110/2.8 just from the lens cells! I've taken one of those apart before.

Cool idea, well done.

Ray
 

Hulyss Bowman

Active member
If you send it to CNC it use an another material than aluminium. I would recommend Teflon or Titanium. Aluminium is too fragile (or you need to structure it inside like bee nest). The point is that the lens or the body are all but not lightweight thus the need of reinforcement (carbon fibre tape or whatever). Or you attach the mount/bellow permanently to the lens. The advantage of titanium is that it is easy to mate it inside by electrolyse.
 

thrice

Active member
Thank you for the suggestion Hulyss. I'm curious why then do Alpa use aluminium for their lens mounts, many of which are much heavier than this lens (not heavy at all, probably 300gm). Consider the 120/5.6 macro with the huge helical.
 

Hulyss Bowman

Active member
Thank you for the suggestion Hulyss. I'm curious why then do Alpa use aluminium for their lens mounts, many of which are much heavier than this lens (not heavy at all, probably 300gm). Consider the 120/5.6 macro with the huge helical.
They use it because it is easy to form (alpa do not mould pieces), light and they can apply an insane coefficient on it to make money. They can justify the price by saying " it is extreme precision pieces, blablabla ..." but you just proved how much a scam is this past century marketing with a simple mainstream 3D printer. With time, aluminium screw path vanish like ice. Aluminium is the least of the material to support mechanical corrosion (screwing and so on). It is only good with big milled blocks or static structure. So if you bump it, it is done.

If tomorrow I'm billionaire ( :p ) I would make European based camera and the main material would be titanium. Extremely resilient, light as Al, and it do not bump : it break. Before breaking a titanium piece, you can wake up early in the morning (see glass mounts for our eyes). Aluminium is also prone to oxidation and transform into salt >> need to be anodized or painted. Titanium need nothing apart cosmetic.

So yes, Aluminium allow you to have a sort of elastic tolerance, titanium no. Ti is extremely isostatic. then you use extremely resilient and thin layers of Teflon to adjust the lens.

My family work in this kind of industry for more than a century and when they see how much cost a japacrap Hassy body (body only) or even leica S body (panasonic crap fabrication) ... they really know how much a scam are those pieces.

It is why I will, for now, never buy a Digital MF and only rent it. When you put 5 Grands in a Hassy plastic fantastic body, either you are very wealthy and do not care at all or you are masochist. The more you go in photography "luxury" (price only) devices the more the scam is huge on materials. I do not speak about backs and lenses, here they can't blatantly lie.

If you go to your CNC guy, show him your alpa body and ask him how much it will cost you to mill it in a AL block. Do not forget to go to pharmacy after price announce because you will need some stock of bromazepam.
 
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V

Vivek

Guest
Hulyss, If you start a kickstarter campaign, I will be your first backer! :)
 

thrice

Active member
Leica S is magnesium alloy, milled top and bottom plate and very nicely assembled. Fabricated in Portugal and assembled in Germany. Panasonic had no input on the Leica S at all, it was entirely in house. I worked for Leica.

It's a shame you threw that in there, because I figured your post was quite informative but you bash a lot of brands unnecessarily. If you can do so much better then do it.
 

Hulyss Bowman

Active member
yea... like a simple D700. Period.

I owned the first batch of leica S and, even if magnesium, buttons, batteries door was just an insult for the price (thus the Panasonic reference).

For this kind of prices we should be served with top notch materials and technology (and if I was alone to think it, every pros on the planet would have bought it).

So I'm sorry but actual MF cameras are just toys compared with what it used to be in film days. Your experience in Leica can't counter this very fact.

Those brands should product durable devices you can transmit to your children and take value over time (This is a STRICT MINIMUM for the price of a car or a small apartment). Leica is not what it used to be. Like others, they jumped in hyped PR and the devices are all but not exceptional.

Only lenses are (hopefully).

Pentax just show the world how much all this story is ridiculous.

You should have worked for Pentax. Your view on the subject would have been different. I follow you since your first high desire of owning an Alpa device, a such expensive piece of metal :)
 

Hulyss Bowman

Active member
Ho yea, I lost a battery on the S in the first week of use in Alps expedition. This battery door system is so clever ...
 

gerald.d

Well-known member
Aaaaaanyway...

Fascinating project. So much more interesting to learn about the frankenlens than the unfortunate and unnecessary tangent.

Back on topic I hope with some more images?

Kind regards,

Gerald.
 

thrice

Active member
Thanks Gerald!
I'm shooting around 80 hours this week so it's hard to feel motivated to shoot for personal enjoyment when I get home. I'll try and take some shots of the lens and mount, and produce some images with it :)

I 3D printed a rather rudimentary lens cap for it, which now that I know is the right dimensions (hard to predict the slight shrink ABS has when it sets) I can make much prettier, but maybe not until next year with my current workload.

Here is a screenshot of the new mount design. Dare I say it's even neater than the alpa design ;) but the edges aren't filleted or chamfered as I do that with sandpaper before finishing.

 
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