 Peacock: Bronica with 20-inch Kodak lens, 1/30 f/10, Ektachrome-X, deep shade, some natural backlight. |
 Butterfly: Bronica 6 inch f/6.8 Goerz Golden Dagor at f/18, on Ektachrome-X with electronic flash from side |
 Tiger: Leica IIIf, Visoflex on Speed Graphic with 20-inch f/10 Kodak Process lens, 1/200 sec. at f/10, daylight on Kodachrome II |
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About 14 years ago, I started making homemade adapters to fit certain
lenses to various cameras that I owned. First, I made a simple mount for
a 135mm f/4.5 Kodak Anastigmat to an Exakta bellows focusing from
infinity down to 1:1 or slightly less, depending on the bellows length. I
just taped the lens flange to a short Exakta extension tube (bayonet on
one side, thread on the other). It worked.
Since I had a number of odd lenses for press and view cameras, I started
thinking of a whole system of adapters for these lenses. Now I've mounted
about eight lenses for a Bronica.
First of all, why bother making adapters? The obvious answer is cost
savings over an expensive new or used lens made for a specific camera.
Secondly, by making your own adapters, you can utilize your existing
lenses. You can have a greater choice of focal lengths, special lenses
for close-ups, and finally, extreme lenses of 500 mm or greater. As you can
see in the color photographs at left [top], quality is the third important
value obtained by using the adapters.
The lenses best for this work, in my opinion, are the slow, long focal
length types. They are much lighter, sometimes cheaper, and often, much
sharper than most of the fast or telephoto lenses. They also put less
strain on the cameras or bellows. I've used many such lenses, including
the following:
Other lenses are of course possible to adapt. The two Ektars fit into the
same adapter, which is handy. Leica lens adapters for other lenses will
fit a Bronica adapter with a Leica flange. The 140 mm and 170 mm f/7.7
Kodak Anastigmats, in ball-bearing shutters, are found on old Kodak 3A or
2A folding cameras. They are very sharp and cheap. Adapters have been
made for the Bronica mainly, Leica 3/f (screw), certain Graflexes, and a
few for an Exakta VX (or Topcon). Whatever I've done can be done as well
with a 35mm SLR body.
Bronica is Easy
The Bronica camera is the simplest 2 1/4 camera for adapters because of
its internal focusing mechanism. My Bronica C-2 has a triple lens mount,
but the most important part is the simple screw thread, the same thread
as the bellows and extension tube. Three different body caps are made
for the Bronica. The solid metal one (no. 80774 EPOI) with screw threads
is the whole secret for adapters. I use it as a lens board and drill a
hole to accommodate the proper lens flange or clamp ring. There's a limit
to the size of lens that will fit the adapter (about 2 1/4 inch). Beyond
that size you need some modifications that we'll describe later. A normal
lens of 5 inch focal length is about the minimum lens that will focus to
infinity. The inexpensive Bronica extension tube (81307) gives the
necessary extension. If you have a normal lens of about 7 1/2 inch focal
length, you can use it on the Bronica bellows and still focus to
infinity. The 8 inch f/7.7 Ektar is perfect for this. Of course, a
shorter lens could be used for nature close-ups. The 6 inch f/6.8 Dagor
is really a superior lens for this. The 9 1/2 inch Goerz Apo Artar also
fits nicely on the bellows. Once the lens gets much bigger than the
Artar, you need a new system for mounting it.
The Exakta mounts are somewhat limited in size but still will accommodate
the slower and smaller lenses. There is no special way of making the
adapter other than to fasten the flange to the tube by liquid aluminum,
black photographic tape, or fiber glass tape (Arno or Mystik).
Leica mount are more versatile than Exakta mounts, since they're meant
for the Visoflex I and its bellows. The bellows accepts a whole series of
rings, including the standard 39mm Leica rings or the large outer ring
that the 125 mm f/2.5 Hektor fits. This allows both small and large
lenses to be mounted. Five inch of focal length is about the minimum that
will focus to infinity. Nine and one-half inch lenses are about the
maximum that can be used without great modifications. I've been shooting
with the 6 inch Dagor, 8 inch Ektar and 9 1/2 inch Artar Leica mounts for
10 years. The 8 inch Ektar is simple to mount, as it fits the normal
Leica tube easily. I made one in about 2 minutes, to take bird pictures.
Later, I used liquid aluminum to make the adapter stronger. The 9 1/2
inch Apo Artar in shutter fits beautifully into the adapter for the 125
mm f/2.5 Hektor. The 6 inch Dagor had to be butt-fitted to a tube, which
isn't the best situation. None of the adapters described, with the
exception of the heavy 20 inch lens mount, have come apart.
 Leica IIIf, Visoflex I, Bellows and adapter for 9 1/2 inch f/9 Goerz Apo Artar Now in use 10 years |
 Piggyback adapter allows Leica and Visoflex to fit Graphic and 20-inch f/10 Kodak Lens |
Piggyback Cameras?
Another good way of adapting lenses is to use a ''piggyback'' device.
This consists of a board or plate that fits the 4 x 5 Graflok back of a
Speed Graphic or Linhof and has a coupling on the opposite side to fit a
camera - Exakta or Visoflex (See second photo from top, page 83.)[above] I
think
the Visoflex is the best way of doing this, as the camera body can be
revolved for horizontal or vertical shots, but it does require a long
lens to focus to infinity. It is, however, a very good combination,
although slow, for close-up nature pictures.
There are a few problems with these simple adapters. Most of the lenses I
have mentioned will cover 4 x 5 inch or even larger formats, so there is
stray light bouncing around inside the system. The adapters work best
with Leica or Bronica bellows which act as baffles. Using Bronica
extension tubes without bellows, I've found flare outdoors at times with
even the best lenses, especially in the center of the picture. This may
be due to an extension tube or camera problem, as I get this at times
even with the 135mm Nikon lens in my Bronica system on close-ups.
I'm a Tripod Man
My lenses are nearly all slow, so most of the work has to be done on a
tripod except for shots with the Bronica and short extension tubes. Slow
lenses, however, usually, are the sharpest. I have even used the 20 inch
f/10 at 1/25 sec. for shady lighting. (See tiger picture page 83.)[top]
Balancing of the lens and alleviating strain on the camera or bellows are
also severe problems to overcome in the case of the very long lenses.
Braces are needed. A special bonus for the Bronica is the 7 1/2 inch
f/4.5 Bausch and Lomb Tessar or the 7 1/2 inch f/4.5 Kodak Anastigmat
which fit the Bronica or bellows screw thread directly without any
adapters and will focus to infinity on the bellows.
War surplus lenses in general are heavy and bulky, are cheap and may
require a very heavy-duty lens mount or extensive machining to be used.
An exception to this rule would be the 15 inch f/5.6 Tele Raptar and
possibly the B & L 20 inch f/5.6 telephoto.
I did have a 14 inch f/5.6 British surplus lens mounted on another 4 x 5
RB Auto Graflex. It required much machining and was heavy, but did work
well on the Graflex. It's easy to change apertures with the Auto Graflex.
(With the 4 x 5 RB Super D Graflex or the older 4 x 5 RB model D Graflex,
the lens board is sunk mounted with an overhead flap when the camera is
open.) I bought a 15 inch f/5.6 Tele Optar only to find that I could not
conveniently reach the diaphragm. There are at least two or three
versions of this lens, but mine had the diaphragm control ring near the
rear of the lens. Someone helped me make a mount which encircled the
control ring and projected forward in the form of a lever. On the front
of the camera a metal plate was attached with tapped holes corresponding
to the various f/numbers of the lens. Small threaded pins were placed
into the desired f/number hole. This meant that I could move the lever to
f/5.6 for focusing and then swiftly move the lever to f/16 or other stop
for taking. You can look at the ground glass and move the lever by touch
only. This adaptation worked well and I've used it for over 10 years with
very good results. The lever and plate do not interfere in any way with
the normal auto diaphragm mount of the 190 mm f/5.6 Ektar normally
supplied with the camera.
A Great Find
About a year ago, I found a coated 20 inch f/10 Kodak process lens in a
store. I bought it and spent about a year adapting it, after a number of
trials, to three different cameras. (The Kodak lens also is available in
18 inch, 21 inch, and 22 inch versions with the same flange size.) After
testing on a Calumet view camera, using a quickly made adapter, I decided
that the lens was worth adapting to other cameras.
The first camera tried was a 4 x 5 Super D Graflex. This was a disaster,
as the lens with a long crude tube was much too heavy and overbalanced
for the Super D. I borrowed a 4 x 5 RB Auto Graflex with 18 inch bellows.
This and another model I had owned previously are ideal cameras for long
lenses. I made a short tube out of plastic tubing attached to a lens
board with fiberglass tape. I blackened the tube inside and outside with
black photographic tape and built up the inside of the front of the tube
so the lens and flange would fit tightly. This system worked beautifully
but did require a brace.
 Bronica C, bellows, specially made adapter (See text) and 12 inch f/6.3 Voigtlander Collinear focuses to 10 feet |
 Bronica C, bellows, and longer adapter plus brace and optical bench for the 20-inch f/10 Kodak Process lens. |
Next came the Bronica adapter. I had to make another tube which was an 8
inch long thick-walled (1/4 inch) sturdy cardboard tube 3 inches in
diameter. The lens and flange were attached to one end by tape and the
other end had my special adapter for the 12 inch Collinear inserted into
it. This adapter was force-fitted into the tube and taped on. This
adapter has a Bronica thread on the rear which fitted into the Bronica
bellows. A 1/4 inch thick drilled and tapped aluminum slab was made into
a crude optical bench on which the whole system was placed. A sliding
support member was used to hold up the heavy lens tube. The bench was
built up slightly on the opposite end so that the bellows was supported
on the rear (see photo, second from bottom, page 83)[above] which gave a
total
of three supports. The camera was attached and the whole system worked
very well but with some cutoff at the top of the picture. By shimming the
support and using the rising front of the bellows, I almost eliminated
this. The system focuses to about 10 feet. I've used shutter speeds down
to 1/25 sec. by dampening camera vibrations with my body. Pictures have
been very good.
The larger diameter lenses or Bronica adapter for the long tube requires
another technique. A metal tube, suitable for fitting inside a large lens
flange, is used. A metal plate (1/8 or 1/4 inch aluminum) is fastened to
the back of the tube. It is partially drilled out and a previously
drilled out Bronica body cap is fastened to this partially open plate.
The opposite end is open for the Bronica long tube or a flange is
attached to it for adapter use. This method worked very well for the 12
inch Collinear and 14 inch Schneider Tele-Xenar.
 4 x 5 RB Graflex Auto with same 20-inch f/10 lens makes use of lens' ability to cover large format |
Fitting a 20-incher to the Leica
The last adapter made or utilized was to fit the 20 inch lens to the
Leica. Fortunately I already had all of the parts and I just needed the
inspiration for putting them together. The Auto Graflex I bought
eventually used a Pacemaker Speed Graphic lens board. I attached the lens
to the Auto Graflex tube (and Graphic board) and this was attached to a 4
x 5 Pacemaker Speed Graphic. Then I attached my Leica Visoflex I to the
"piggyback" adapter on the back of the Speed Graphic and I was in
operation in 5 minutes. A brace is very necessary for this system, as the
20-inch lens is quite heavy. The tunnel finder must be used in the
Visoflex to clear the Graphic adapter housing as the Peegoo finder will
not. The system works fine (top photo, page 83)[see above].
High Quality, Low Price
For those who might scoff at my crude gadgets - consider the quality of
the pictures made with a $25 f/10 20-inch lens and compare the prices for
a 400mm f/4.5 Auto-Nikkor lens for a Bronica. Also check the prices for a
20-inch Tele-Tessar for a Hasselblad or a Rollei 66.
Now let me see - if I take my series 9 plus 1 diopter lens - that would
give me about a 40-inch lens. If I then placed it into a series 9 adapter
ring with an extra insert ring, I could put in cardboard lens stops and a
green filter to cut down on chromatic problems. Then... if I had a 35
inch cardboard tube, series 9 plus 1 lens on one end and attached the
other end to a Speed Graphic lens board with my famous black tape... then
if I set up two tripods, one for the tube and lens, one for the Graphic.---
The End
Copyrighted 19?? by Howard G. Ross
Originally published in Modern Photography, date? pp. 82,83,136,138,140,141.
Special Thanks to Mr. Howard G. Ross for permission to post his article
for the benefit of interested lens hackers everywhere!
Our Special Thanks also go to John W. Horton ([email protected]) for
providing this article and encouraging Mr. Ross to draft an article on
the ''History of the Enchancing Filter'' which we look forward to
posting for photography history buffs too!
DRAFT - Date: July 18, 1998
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999
From: "S. Sherman" [email protected]
Subject: Re: [BRONICA] Lens Conversion -- Rapter
from: [email protected] (Sam Sherman) 8-22-99
To: Bronica List:
What you probably have is an Apo Raptar Graphic arts lens.
See Bob Monaghan's Bronica website for Howard Ross' article on adapting
strange lenses also for Bronica.
Based on this article I bought one of the lenses and put a Pieskar (Votar)
39MM adapter on the back of this lens (attaches with setscrews) - giving me
a short mount lens wqithout focusing helix.
I then extended this with long Leica screw extension tubes and screwed
this into a Novoflex 39MM Leica screw adapter to 57MM Bronica screw thread
on the front of my Bronica bellows. And variations of this process to
minmize vignetting.
It takes good photos and with the 39MM screw thread on it I can also use
it for other uses including my 4x5 Graflex B, which I have adapted with a
57MM screw mount (Same as Bronica) which takes the Bronica Extension tubes
and Novoflex adapter.
I can also use the Graflex 7 1/2" Kodak lens on Bronica S2A stuff as it is
57MM screw thread.
This should be at least more than you want to know.
- Sam Sherman
----------
>From: [email protected] >To: [email protected] >Subject: [BRONICA] Lens Conversion -- Rapter >Date: Sat, Aug 21, 1999, 11:12 PM > >Anyone had experience converting a Rapter LF (supposedly 8X10)lens to be used >on a Bronica S2A? I have located one (300mm+) that I am told is very sharp >(no shutter its a barrel lens) with F10 to F64. It comes with a mounting >flange on the rear. > >Any input would be appreciated.