Varioflex II Shift Lens Adapter Illustrates Our Approach
Special thanks to PCE for this photo!
Pittsburgh Camera Exchange

Related Postings:
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Zoerk Adapter - Mamiya 50mm to Hasselblad Shift Lens Adapter
Shift Lens Related Postings
Zoerkendorfer Medium Format Mount Converters Pages
Zoerkendorfer Pro Shift Lens Brochure (pdf file) [2/2002]
Arsenal 35mm f2.8 Tilt/shift Lens 11mm decentering, +/- 8 degree tilts! ($450 US ppd. Nikon...)
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Hasselblad and Mamiya RB/RZ67 View Camera Converter (mfg by Horseman)
Horseman SW612
Dr. Gilde's Multiformat panoramic tilt/shift Cameras
WJM's Tilt/Shift Lens List
WJM's notes on shifting and tilting lenses, math...
Arsenal 35mm f/2.8 Tilt/Shift Lenses
(+/- 8 deg; 11mm - $399 US, Nik/Can/M42/Pen-K/Min/Contax/Leica)
Homebrew Nikon 28mm PC shift lens How-to
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Nikkor 85mm PC shift/tilt lens (Bjorn Rorslett)
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Using Perspective Control Lens by Matthew Cole [1/2001]
Minolta 35mm f/2.8 Shift Lens Manual [4/2001]
B��rn R�rslett's Nikon 28mm PC to Tilt/Shift Lens Conversion (thanks to Lars Hansen for URL!) [7/2001]
Correcting Distortion and Color Fringing by Brian Caldwell [8/2002]

Here is the simplest and cheapest ($5 US) way to achieve a wide angle shift lens capability with infinity focusing in medium format photography using - you guessed it - our classic Bronicas.

Why a Shift Lens?

A shift lens is very simple in concept. You simply raise (or lower) the shift lens relative to the center of your camera's lens mount to achieve desired perspective controls.

On a view camera, you can just raise or shift the lens upward or downward on its lens board to achieve these effects. But in medium format and 35mm, we need a shift lens or shift adapter for our lenses. If you could just shift a medium format wide angle lens up or down, you could also enjoy perspective control over converging verticals and other tricks.

These vertical shifts are great for controlling converging lines in architectural photography. While we rarely adjust for horizontal convergence, horizontal shifts are also useful for panoramic photography. You take two photos at either end of the horizontal shift range and cut and merge the prints together to get a panoramic print. Take a look at a view camera handbook showing the perspective control effects. You will quickly appreciate the benefits of such a seemingly minor capability!

How to Make a PC Shift Lens for Under Five Bucks..

First, this is a great idea, but it isn't my idea. Credit belongs to R.I.T.'s Andrew Davidhazy, who described his concept in a Modern Photography article entitled How to do the Impossible - How to Make a Perspective Correction (PC) Lens for Under Five Bucks (Lens Not Included) (p. 89, April 1982).

Second, Bronica wide angle lenses are ideal candidates for shift lenses. These lenses were designed to be used on the Bronica Bellows Unit(s) with a variety of tilts and shifts for closeup or macrophotography use. So extra coverage is there for an infinity-setting shift lens user too. And don't forget that Bronica did experiment with a 6x8cm prototype Bronica too. So you can be pretty sure that your standard Bronica wide angle lenses will have considerable reserve coverage needed in a shift lens. But you don't need much extra coverage. On 35mm cameras, only 7mm of shift is typically needed for most architectural corrections, and the Nikkor PC 35mm lens only offers 11mm of shift range.

Moreover, coverage of lenses increases considerably (e.g., 30%) as you stop down from wide open settings. So a lens that looks like it has poor coverage in the viewfinder when you are focusing wide open may do just fine when stopped down to a more typical f/8, f/11, or f/16 taking aperture.

Third, Bronicas are unique among medium format cameras because they have a removable helical lens mount. Now this removable helical mount was designed to enable mounting huge and long Nikkor telephoto lenses and the Bronica tilt/shift bellows while maintaining infinity focus capability. Thanks to this unique Bronica removable helical mounting, nearly every Bronica lens can be mounted in the tilt/shift bellows and used as a closeup or macro-lens, as well as in regular use with infinity focus.

So why not just use the Bronica tilt/shift bellows with the usual lenses at infinity? Unfortunately, at the infinity setting closest to the camera body, the amount of tilt/shift available is very small and less useful than we usually need. We need a shift setup that is more compact than the tilt/shift bellows, with its folds and controls limiting our shifting range.

But this removable focusing mount design makes it ridiculously simple to build a simple and cheap shift adapter for your Bronica lenses that preserves infinity focus! When you remove the lens helical focusing mount, you gain about 8mm of working space in which to build a shift lens adapter. So you can retain infinity focus with your native Bronica lenses.

All you need is a shift adapter that lets you shift your Bronica lenses up and down within the large body throat after removing the lens helical focusing mount. If your shift adapter is less than circa 8mm deep - the depth the helical lens focusing mount normally occupies - you will retain infinity focusing too!

Usually we raise the shift lens vertically to enable control of converging vertical lines in tall buildings. Fortunately, our $5 Bronica shift lens adapter provides us with maximum shift capabilities in just the desired vertical direction to maximize this shift control range. Range of movement varies with each lens and your adapter but runs 12mm vertical upward shift, and circa 7mm downward with the 50mm wide angle lens. Downward motion is less due to the mirror getting in the way.

Test out the basic idea for yourself. Remove your Bronica wide angle lens (or normal lens) from the helical lens mount. Now depress the release button and remove the helical focusing mount itself. Carefully hold the wide angle lens roughly centered in the body opening. Be careful not to push against the mirror, but hold the lens 5 to 8 millimeters from the body. The lens will be back at its infinity focusing point, just as if it were mounted on the 8mm or so thick lens helical focusing mount. You will notice that you can now move your lens up and down in the larger helical mount opening (circa 12 mm vertically upward, less downward due to falling mirror).

Congratulations! You have just tested your own Bronica wide angle lens for use in a lens shift adapter with infinity focusing capabilities. Simple, huh?

All you need to do now is build a permanent and light-proof holder and enjoy your new shift lens.

Thanks to the removed helical mount, you have circa 8mm working space to fabricate your shift mount adapter while still preserving infinity focus.

Let's look at Mr. Davidhazy's 35mm approach first, then adapt it for Bronicas:

35mm Version Design Ideas

Mr. Davidhazy's adapter uses a 35mm camera, 35mm lens, and body cap design. A vertical (or horizontal) groove big enough to hold and shift around the rear of the lens is cut in the 35mm body cap.

The 35mm lens is mounted on a lens board with a hole in it. You simply slide the lens and lens board up and down in a spacer board epoxied to the 35mm body cap. That's all it takes to build a 35mm shift lens.

The spacer board has two U-shaped channels on either side of it. These channels are made from long and thin spacers on either side of the spacer board. The spacer board is glued onto the grooved body cap. The spacers are chosen to provide enough slack so the lens mount board can slide up and down freely.

The top spacer is extra wide on each side, so as to create an overhang or U-shaped channel. The lens board fits in this channel, and can't fall out. You can only slide the lens board in or out of the spacer board channel from either end of the adapter.

The 35mm body cap and mounting materials is the cost of your total outlay - circa $5 US.

One concept not in Mr. Davidhazy's article is which lenses you can use on 35mm cameras. Examination of W.J. Markerink's Lens Mount Registration Distance Tables will show which lens will work on your 35mm camera. Mr. Davidhazy's original article used a simple thin paper based adapter so as to minimize thickness of his adapter and cost.

For example, any T-mount wide angle lens (usually preset lenses) can be used in a simple shift adapter, if it has the coverage, thanks to their long 55mm lens registration distance. On a Nikon camera (46.5mm lens registration distance), you would have (55-46.5=8.5mm) circa 8 mm of space to build your shift adapter and still preserve infinity focusing too! My Topcon UNI lenses (also 55mm) can be used too.

Unlike commercial 35mm shift lenses, you aren't limited to just 35mm and 28mm focal lengths (or a 24mm Olympus shift lens). Instead, you can use a wide range of focal lengths if they have sufficient extra coverage (and many older lenses do have extra coverage, especially stopped down). You can get T-mount lenses from 18mm ultrawides on up through telephoto focal lengths. You can also use Y-S mount and other interchangeable mount lenses with the mounts removed for extra working room in mounting them.

Incidentally, shift lenses are typically not automatic diaphragm, but rather preset or manually controlled lenses. This feature is usually due to the complexity of coupling a moving element lens design. Our Bronica shift lens adapter also features this non-auto or manual approach. You simply have to stop down before making your exposure manually, using the lens aperture ring. Simple. Yes, it is slower, but shift lenses are used on tripods and slow moving subjects (buildings) so this isn't a big limitation!

                      --------------------
                      | x     camera      |
Spacer Board:         -----| +mount  |-----
Looking Down         
                            |       | <--- body cap
           -----------------|       |-------------------  spacer board
           |                                            |  spacers
           |                                            |
           ----                                      ----  retaining spacers

Lens Board:
Looking Down                  rear
                              ______
                             |      |
             ----------------- lens --------------------
                             |______|                      lens board
                              front


Assembled Shift Adapter:     -camera-

                             |       | <--- body cap
           ------------------|       |-------------------  spacer board
           |                   ______                    |
           |                  |      |                   |
           |  ----------------- lens ------------------  |
           |-----             |______|               ----|  lens board

Spacer Board:
Front view

           |=====-------------------------------------====|
           |    |                                     |   |
           |    |          |---------|                |   |
           |    |          |   hole  |                |   |
           |    |          |   thru  |                |   |
           |    |          |   body  |                |   |
           |    |          |   cap   |                |   |
           |    |          |---------|                |   |
           |    |                                     |   |
           |=====-------------------------------------====|
                         front view of spacer board
                    (showing grooves - body cap behind)

Bronica Medium Format Modifications

Obviously, this same concept will work with a medium format Bronica camera too.

The main reason for building a Bronica lens mount adapter is to be able to use the wide angle and normal lenses in a shift lens mount adapter. You can get closer to your subject and still enjoy the benefits of shift lens capabilities. The most popular 35mm camera PC shift lens is a 35mm design, corresponding to a 50mm Bronica lens on 6x6cm format.

But can you live with the circa 100mm long-normal focal length of the folder shift lens designs? If so, then just make a more permanent deluxe version, using some of the tricks described below for inspiration.

You will need a press-fit circular plastic body cap to match the Bronica body mount. A trip to the supermarket or other stores may turn up some likely plastic lids. Remember that many plastics can be deformed after heating (e.g., in very hot water), while retaining their shape once cool again. This approach is best for a press-fit design.

Alternatively, you can also custom grind a PVC end cap in place of the hard to find Bronica helical body cap. Use the helical mount as a size guide. Note the three projecting helical mount lugs. Use a dremel drill to grind your helical body mount adapter to match. Be sure to put an alignment dot (red) in the right spot for alignment when mounting.

A press fit adapter is simpler, since you just slide or press it into place. You can make a press fit adapter by starting with a slightly undersize plastic cap or PVC adapter and add tape around it so it fits snugly. This press fit adapter approach isn't good enough for really heavy lenses. But you are probably not going to be using long or heavy telephotos on a PC shift adapter anyway, right? This approach has the advantage of letting you switch easily between vertical and horizontal shifting modes too. Just carefully twist the press-fit adapter so the lens shifting groove is oriented vertically or horizontally as needed.

Cut a vertical groove in the center of your helical body cap adapter. The lens will go up and down in this groove channel in the finished shift adapter. The groove needs to be wide enough so the lens rear elements can fit into the body and move up and down the groove without binding. The upper and lower heights of the groove will depend on how far your lens can move up and down without hitting the mirror (downward) or body (upwards).

Spray paint the insides of your shift adapter parts flat black (or use flat black enamel paint) to reduce flare.

Using metal, wood, or plastic (e.g., from hobbyist shop supplies), build a spacer board with groove matching the shift lens groove cut in your helical body cap adapter. Epoxy the spacer board to the helical body cap adapter you have made, matching up the two grooves. Let the epoxy harden (or use recessed metal screws and nuts if you build an all-metal spacer board design).

Epoxy some spacers on either end of the spacer board. A retaining channel can be easily built with a slightly wider piece of metal, plastic or wood spacer epoxied on the top of each side of the spacer board. The resulting U-shaped channel needs to be high enough to let the lens board slide freely without being loose.

The lens board is relatively easy too. It is really just a board of the right thickness so that when the lens on the lens board is mounted on the body cap and spacer board, the lens in the shift adapter will be at the infinity focusing point.

The lens board has a centered round hole for the lens elements and light to pass through when mounted on the body cap shift adapter. Stray light can't get past the rest of the lens board into the camera, regardless of position or shift settings. The rear of the lens fills the circular hole in your lens board completely. A circle of black felt around the hole may help reduce any (unlikely) flare off the rear of the lens mount elements.

I am assuming here that you want a vertical perspective control setup to cure convergence of verticals in architectural photography. But you could make an equally effective horizontal perspective control setup with a horizontal groove setup. Such a setup would be most useful for panoramic photographic efforts, merging two images into one final print with minimal distortion. All you need is another $5 homebrew shift adapter, this time with a horizontal groove. Or if your helical body press-fit mount adapter is sufficiently loose, you can just rotate it around horizontally ninety degrees. With luck, you will get both effects for the price of one adapter ($5 US).

How can you improve this lens board setup? Ideally, it would be nice if your Bronica lenses could simply mount normally. Consider using a version of Mike Bond's body-cap mount approach. A Bronica rear lens cap can be used to provide a matching lens mount for your lens. You only need the top section that mates to your lens for mounting. Cut and grind away the excess, leaving just enough to bring your lenses to infinity focus when mounted on your adapter mounting ring.

Another approach uses a surplus Bronica extension tube with lens mount hardware (e.g., C-B tube). A machinist can remove and remount these metal lens parts onto a threaded ring. The ring is wide enough to let the rear of your desired lenses (e.g., 50mm, 75mm) project through the body mounted spacer board groove and into the camera. A matching threaded nut epoxied on your lens board will mate to the threaded lens mount ring. This threaded mount design makes it easy to adjust infinity focusing by simply screwing the lens into and out of the mounting threaded nut.

This deluxe threaded lens mount also provides a range of focusing adjustments closer than infinity. But you can also use shims under your lens in its lens board mount to duplicate this closer-focusing effect on simpler designs. For really close-focusing shifts and tilts, you would obviously be able to use Bronica's tilt/shift bellows units.

Incidentally, you may wonder why we don't just use a Bronica tilt/shift bellows. We can, for closeup and macro-subjects, where the bellows can be adjusted to put the plane of focus where you need it. This capability is one reason there are no Bronica macro-lenses, since you can get even better control and results using the regular lenses on the tilt/shift bellows.

If you have the deluxe Bronica tilt/shift bellows, you can also use a variety of short telephoto lenses borrowed from old folders or view cameras for tilt/shift work too. These longer lens registration distance lenses can easily be setup and used for infinity focus with full tilts and shifts. But we really want tilts and shifts with wide angle lenses for architectural photography and other needs. View camera and folder lenses are almost all telephoto lenses when used on the Bronica, or much more costly than Bronica's own wide angle lenses. There are very few retro-focus wide angle designs for view cameras that might work with Bronica's 101.70mm lens registration distance. So we would really like to use Bronica's own low cost wide angle lenses on the tilt/shift bellows at infinity.

But unfortunately, there just isn't enough space when the Bronica tilt/shift bellows is mounted in the helical body mount to provide much if any tilt or shift range. The same problem affects the Kowa 6/66 tilt/shift bellows and the Rollei SL66 design, I'm told. But if you build your own Bronica shift adapter, you can keep it thin enough (that magic 8 mm) so you can retain infinity focus while still being able to shift the Bronica wide angle lenses.

In practice, you will probably rarely use your shift lens adapter on subjects much closer than infinity. Use the Bronica tilt/shift bellows for closeup and macro-work, gaining both tilts and shifts at low cost.

Stopping down will probably provide enough depth of field for most subjects using the wide angle lenses. Stopping down also greatly increases the coverage of any lens (e.g., up to 50% or more coverage). So be sure to stop down your lens whenever you need to get maximum depth-of-field and shifting range.

But a few spacers are cheap and easy to make if needed. They are simply large circular washers that fit under the lens with a hole that matches the one in the lens board (e.g., an overgrown washer). They act like mini-extension tubes, improving closeup performance. I should probably also mention that coverage of a lens dramatically improves when you use it with extension tubes for closeup work too.

In use, you just slide the lens board into the U-shaped grooves of the spacer board (epoxied to the body cap mount). Now mount the lens carefully through the hole in the helical body cap shift lens adapter and spacer board. You can hold the lens in place in the simplest design. You can also mount the lens in a body-cap lens rear mount or remounted extension tube model mounts (or one of your own design). Remove the regular helical body mount from your Bronica and replace with your homemade helical body cap shift lens adapter.

Thanks to the lens board, light can't get into the excess shift channel groove openings as the lens board blocks the way.

You can obviously mark your lens board with marks to indicate normal or centered setting, and millimeters of shift up or down. Simply measure the central point of the lens or lens mount and mark the corresponding distance on your adapter.

An obvious improvement is to drill and mount several simple and cheap thumbscrews in holes on each side of the retaining bars on the spacer board mount. Now you can carefully adjust the lens shift settings, then tighten the thumbscrews to hold everything in place. This approach will also help lock the lens board at a tight and repeatable infinity focusing point.

I suggest that if you use a wood or plastic material for your lens board, that you consider adding a thin strip of hobbyshop brass or steel epoxied on either side of the lens board, right under the thumbscrews in your setup. This trick will help to minimize the wear on your lens board edges. Similarly, you can counter-sink and epoxy in place nuts to match the thumbscrews you use in holes in the spacer board. Again, this trick will reduce wear and slippage with use.

Yes, this Bronica infinity shift adapter setup is somewhat crude. But it does cost from a hundred to a thousand times less than the nearest commercial medium format equivalent. Besides, what do you expect for a measly five bucks? ;-)

Varioflex II Short-Tele Lens Mount
Special thanks to PCE for this photo!
Pittsburgh Camera Exchange

The above photo shows a commercial shift lens mount from 1971 made by Vytron for 35mm camera use. Vytron Corp. produced a unique series of four short telephoto shift lenses in the 65mm (f6.8), 90mm (f6.8), 100mm (f5.6) and 110mm (f6.8) focal lengths. Mounted on one of their later adapters, the Schneider 65mm f6.8 Angulon lens could be shifted up to 23mm (!) in its Nikon mount.

This varioflex II lens mount adapter used a 35mm body mount (e.g., Nikon lens rear) attached to one of two plastic plates. A second plate slid over the top of the first. The lens was mounted in the second outer plate. The adapter could be shifted up and down, as you can see from the photo. A control could be turned to move the plates up and down. A lock held them in place when taking the photo.

This shift lens mount design is basically what we are replicating here for our Bronicas. You may want to get fancy too. Use a turning screw design to achieve more precise and repeatable control over your lens position in your shift adapter.

Our approach is actually superior to this commercial shift adapter in one way. We can use wide angle lenses in our design. The Vytron design was limited to longer lenses (i.e., short telephotos) which did not project into the camera body.

(see Wierd Third Party Lenses for more details)

Conclusions

Unfortunately, these tricks for making a medium format shift lens work best on a classic Bronica camera, and not on most other medium format cameras. You can't remove the lens mount in other camera designs, so you can't build an infinity focusing shift adapter.

Many other camera lenses aren't designed with extra coverage (cf. Hasselblad shift to Rodenstock lenses for coverage needs on the Arc body cameras).

Only Bronicas have a falling mirror design, making it possible to shift the rear-projecting wide angle lens elements upward without hitting the flipping mirror.

What? You want more??? You want a tilt/shift adapter too?

Well, sure, you could build a lizard-eye rotating ball-joint tilt/shift infinity-focusing lens mount adapter. Maybe something like a 360 degree rotating air conditioning ball-joint as used in first class planes and buses? But hey, that's gotta cost at least twenty bucks! Grins ;-)

P.S. - Hint: Don't forget that 101mm 6x9cm Kodak folder lens prototype in the table above! You remember it was cheap. Yet old 6x9cm folder lenses have lots and lots of coverage for 6x6cm, right? Well, those folder lenses are also quite small too. Small enough that you can fit it into one of those air-conditioning rotating eye-ball joints. You can epoxy the plastic eye-ball joint to a tube stub and slide it in and out of the body cap mount for focusing. Now you can shift up and down and tilt all around. But P L E A S E!! don't tell those other guys how little you paid for your tilt/shift lens, okay? Don't make them cry!

Some Tips for Non-Bronica S2/EC Users of Leaf Shutter and Other Focal Plane Cameras (Mamiya/Hassy..) [added 8/2/99]

Most of the ideas described above can be adapted for use on other brands and models of cameras with a bit of thought and experimentation. See the homebrew lenses pages for more ideas and tips.

Getting a shift lens effect at infinity requires:

• a lens that has adequate coverage for your format when shifted,
• a leaf shutter in the lens if your camera uses leaf shutter lenses (Hasselblad 500cm...), and
• a lens mounting distance that makes mounting at infinity possible.

These requirements are actually pretty easy to meet in most medium format setups, thanks to the many view camera and low cost folder lenses that can cover 6x9cm or better. Many of these same lenses are already mounted in integral leaf shutters too. Because of the intended 6x9cm format, most of these folder and view camera lenses are in the 105mm or longer focal length, making it possible to mount them for use at infinity on most medium format 6x6 or 6x7cm cameras.

By contrast, most 6x6cm cameras have normal lens focal lengths of circa 75mm to 80mm and a roughly comparable lens mounting distance. You can check your camera's Lens Registration Distance. For example, the Hasselblad 500c/cm is 74.90mm, while the Kowa 6 is 79.0mm. In other words, you will typically have an inch or so leeway for building a shift lens mounting (e.g., for Kowa 6 using 105mm folder lens: 105mm - 79.0mm = 26mm = 1+ inch). That's plenty of space for a body cap, extension tube, or bellows shift lens design in most cameras.

Most 6x9cm folder or view camera lenses (let alone 4x5 inch lenses) have plenty of coverage for use on 6x6cm or 6x7cm medium format cameras with shifts (and obviously 6x4.5cm is even easier). They are also easy to physically mount at the desired infinity focusing point. They are very cheap compared to most medium format optics, especially shift lenses. We will look into using these low cost lenses as shift lenses on both focal plane shutter and leaf shutter medium format camera models below.

If you are using a focal plane camera without an integral body mounted focusing mount (as in the Bronica S2/EC), then you need to provide a focusing mechanism. Lots of folks will only want a shift lens for architectural uses set at infinity, so a focusing mount may not be needed in such cases. If you do want a focusing mount, the easiest and most flexible approach is to use a medium format bellows. In fact, there are some medium format bellows (and 35mm equivalents) which featured front standard tilt and shifts. Besides the Bronica S2/EC and Kowa models, firms such as Spiratone and Novoflex made medium format bellows with tilt/shift front standards. Other medium format bellows (which have a wider opening than 35mm models) lacked the tilt or tilt/shift features, but are still useful for macro and focusing uses.

Using a bellows, you can easily vary the focus from infinity to closeup, limited only by the bellows length, for magnification factors (and the available light!). Modifying a medium format bellows to mount on your medium format camera may take just an extension tube or hollowed out body cap adapter, some epoxy, and a bellows adapter ring or mounting hardware. Some 35mm bellows may also work without vignetting, depending on the optics and spacing requirements. Obviously, test out and prototype your setup before cutting, epoxying, or taking any irreversible steps! ;-)

To use the lens, you need to "trick" the medium format camera into working with the mounted lens. If you have a focal plane camera (again, as with Bronica S2a, Rollei SL66..), then you just use preset or manual stop-down operation after focusing through the lens wide-open. Use the focal plane shutter to time the exposure, and ignore any leaf shutter in the lens. Naturally, you can also use barrel lenses (which lack any shutter, but usually have an Iris mechanism for presetting f/stops).

If you have a leaf shutter camera, you will probably have to use the leaf shutter in the lens to control the exposure. If the lens is a barrel lens or doesn't have a leaf shutter, you will have to mount it in a leaf shutter (or arrange for such a mounting) before using it on a leaf shutter camera (e.g., Hasselblad 500cm).

On many folder and mini-view camera lenses, you generally press a lever to open the leaf shutter lens for focusing and composing (or push a cable release screwed into the shutter in older view camera lens/shutter setups). Before shooting, the leaf shutter has to be cocked and closed. The SLR camera body is setup and triggered for a mirror-up exposure as in a time delay or similar shot (e.g., press regular shutter release). Now that the mirror is out of the way, you trip the release on the leaf shutter to make the desired timed exposure, using the leaf shutter's mechanical mechanism for timing.

All this sounds more complicated than it really is. You push a lever to focus and compose. Press it again (or release pressure on some models) to close the leaf shutter. Stop down manually to desired aperture. Now cock the leaf shutter. You are ready to shoot. Using a dual cable release, the body shutter release is triggered first and then the leaf shutter lens is triggered shortly thereafter as part of one smooth pressing motion. The leaf shutter exposes the film for the desired time and closes. Advance the film, resetting the body and mirror to viewing position. Open the leaf shutter lens by pushing that lever again to open it for focusing and composition and twist the iris or aperture control to open it to maximum aperture. Since shift lenses are usually used on a tripod with precise horizon leveling, and to take photos of non-moving buildings and the like, the one or two seconds needed to take the actual exposure is not a problem for most of us.

[Aside: For moving subjects, I find a sport-finder cheap and handy for composing shots when just using the leaf shutter lens for flash-synch or synchro-sunlight portraits (e.g., on a focal plane shutter Bronica S2a). You can prefocus or zone focus and set aperture and leaf shutter exposure time for the prevailing light, and be able to shoot almost as fast as with a regular lens thanks to the dual plunger cable release. The sport finder or a simple wire frame setup is fast and easy to use, and I think lets you interact better with the subjects too.]

In many leaf shutter SLR cameras such as my Hasselblad 500c/cm and Kowa 6, the mirror will stay out of position until you advance the film again and return the mirror to its position for focusing and viewing. Since the odd-ball lens' leaf shutter isn't coupled to the camera film/shutter advance, you have to mechanically cock the leaf shutter in the lens by hand (e.g., push down on a lever usually to "cock it"). Now you can press the open-for-focusing lever (or use a cable release) to open up the leaf shutter for through the lens composition and focusing. Simply stop-down, close the leaf shutter, trip the shutter, and repeat the cycle for each exposure.

A few folder leaf shutter lenses won't have a lever or mechanism to keep them open (as no ground glass focusing and film holder was made for that camera and so on). You should be able to fake it by using the "T" or time exposure settings (or "B" or bulb setting, with a locking cable release). Open up the aperture ring or iris, cock the shutter after setting it to "T" for time exposure, and trip the shutter to open up the leaf shutter for focusing and composing. The leaf shutter will remain open on the "T" or time exposure setting for hours, or until you trip the shutter again to let it close. So just trip the shutter a second time on the "T" setting to close the shutter (or release the cable release clamp on "B" settings) when ready to shoot the picture. Now stop down manually and cock the leaf shutter again for taking the actual (brief) exposure, and continue with the exposure cycle as above.

The only difference with a shift lens is that you have an extra capability to control and fiddle with the position of the lens. With a tilt/shift bellows, this is done by simply raising or lowering the lens in the front tilt/shift bellows standard. With a body cap style mount as described above, you simply shift the lens up and down as needed. A limited amount of focusing may be possible simply by putting shims under the lens (or screwing out the mount in a deluxe setup) if you aren't using a bellows.

You can also combine approaches. In other words, you can "steal" a shift or tilt/shift front standard and bellows from a low cost 6x9cm view camera. Mount it on the camera using a hollowed out body cap or other setup. Now you have to support the lens and bellows and make it movable for focusing. A bent L-shaped metal bar attached to the camera's tripod socket with a 1/4x20 screw may be all it takes to support this setup. Cut a 1/4 inch channel down the middle of the metal bar from the tripod mounting hole, and you can slide it backwards and forwards for focusing easily too.

If your folder lens doesn't have a tilt/shift front standard, you can add shifts by using a large screw and wing nut combo to push the fixed lens standard up and down from the support bar. Tilts may also be possible with a bit of ingenuity (or a loose setup!).

Again, if you have a focal plane shutter camera, you simply ignore the leaf shutter and use the camera's focal plane shutter. However, if the lens and leaf shutter have flash synch (X-synch) terminals, you now have a "synchro-flash" or leaf shutter lens for your use on your focal plane camera too. You can use the leaf shutter lens and X-synch terminal for flash synch at any available leaf shutter speed (e.g., 1/125th, 1/250th, 1/500th..). Even if you don't really need a shift or tilt/shift lens, the option of adding a low cost leaf shutter lens to your available lens optics may be worth it just for the extended flash synchronization option!

Unfortunately, due to the size of the body cap adapter and needed mountings or bellows, you probably can't use any of the standard lenses for your camera - at least, not at infinity. They might not have enough coverage for shifting anyway. [Exceptions might include a few lenses and lens heads using Novoflex or similar focusing mounts.] But the cost of 6x9cm folder lenses and similar view camera lenses (and lenses in barrels for focal plane shutter camera owners) is so low that you can afford to experiment.

You may also be able to use Polaroid camera lenses (integral shutters, often limited speeds except for the (Rodenstock) view camera lens series such as Polaroid 110a cameras). These polaroid camera lenses are also very cheap used (e.g., Polaroid Swinger, SX-70..), often have flash X-synch terminals, are designed for a large format (well beyond 6x7cm, more like 3x4 inches), and are typically 103mm, 105mm, or 107mm focal lengths. Cheaper zone focusing ones may be cheaper and easier to adapt than the sonar and electronic ones. Anyway, keep your eyes open at the next garage sale, as that $10 polaroid clunker may be just what you need!

Hopefully, you have gotten some ideas now of just how easy it may be to adapt existing low cost folder and view camera (even polaroid) lenses for use as shift and tilt/shift lenses on your medium format camera. I should point out that most of these designs involve slightly longer than normal or short telephoto focal length lenses rather than wide angle design lenses. There are some wide angle retrofocus lenses with long lens registration distances (e.g., Bronica S2/EC 101.70mm lens registration optics) that might be used for a wide angle shift lens on some other medium format cameras (with shorter lens registration distances). But most of these tricks using lenses with more coverage from larger formats mean use of slightly tele-lenses on medium format for obvious reasons.

If you still want medium format shift lenses, especially in a wide angle design, but don't or can't go homebrew, consider the Kiev-88 cameras. You can buy any of the 3 available wide angle shift lenses for these focal plane cameras, plus the camera, for less than most used Hasselblad optics or similar lenses for another camera. Or look into the benefits of owning a Bronica S2/EC camera and its low cost optics too! At the other end of the price scale, the Hasselblad Flexbody or Arcbody cameras and associated lenses offer mini-view camera style movements (albeit limited ranges, and at a high price).

Finally, perhaps you can simply use a Horseman or similar mini 6x9cm view camera or 4x5 inch view camera with rollfilm back? The 6x9cm cameras are surprisingly small and portable when folded up, the lenses are excellent, and range of movements more than adequate. Cost is surprisingly low given the quality of the optics and flexibility of the basic camera system too. Besides, it is great fun to experiment with a view camera too!

Notes:

Source: Modern Photography of April 1982, p. 90-2, How to Use Your SLR as a View Camera by Lester Lefkowitz.

Minolta and Contax/Yashica have bellows whose fronts shift horizontally or rotate (swing) about their vertical axis. Spiratone's Bellowsmaster has front AND rear standards that swing about the horizontal and vertical axes. Using a lens board and these bellows, you can achieve camera body shifts up and down and sideways. The Spiratone bellowsmaster has a 42mm T-mount lens board, so with a reverse T-mount, you can use a variety of lenses on it in shift mode too. Spiratone sells these and related adapter rings. Schneider can also mount many lenses to this bellows with similar adapters and their short mount lenses (cf. lens heads). [Ed. note - this is the old Spiratone, from used stock or EBAY, not the current user of the Spiratone name]

rec.photo.equipment.medium-format
From: "Bob Salomon" [email protected]
[1] Re: Zork P67/645 Shift/Tilt adapter
Date: Sat Jan 16 1999

Zork is imported and distributed by Ken Hansen Photo in New York

212 317 0923

They are only open M -F no evenings
Bob

                
>I have also heard rumors that an American distributor has done a deal to
>sell these in America. Otherwise, they must be bought from the original
>German source. I am interested in hearing any experience, gossip, or
>facts about their products. They seem to be an almost ideal solution for
>MF architectural shoots.
>
>The web pages are:
>
>http://www.smu.edu/~rmonagha/mf/links.html    (for Monaghan's MF page)
>
>and
>
>http://www.zoerk.com/    (for Zork adapters)
>
>Thanks for any help.
>
>Rick Dawson            

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999
From: Peter Klosky [email protected]
Subject: Re: Shift problem

Just for fun, I researched this a little. Here are some details, from literature (Adorama Catalog, NYC, USA):

The Super Angulon (SA) comes in two versions, the standard and the XL.

SA - 105 degrees, image circle 123mm. $1042 usd
SA XL - 120 degrees, image circle 166mm. $1409 usd

There are several Toyos, as well as other cameras.

Toyo 45CX - $549 usd.
Calument Cadet Wide - $399 usd.

Rollfilm backs:

Toyo 6x9 - $599
Toyo 6x7 - $599

By my calculations, which are crude, the 6x9 needs an image circle of 108mm, so the XL would allow for more movement.

Peter

>>> Briefly stated: I can't understand if it's possible to shift a 40 mm
>>> lens and how people work around that problem.
>
>Rent a 2x3 view camera with a 6x7 roll film back and a 47mm Super
>Angulon.  It should do the trick.

You might consider something like a Schneider Super Angulon 47/5.6 coupled with a 6x9 rollfilm back on a Toyo-View. One of the top architecture guys in my area uses this, and his results are excellent. You might be able to shop for a cheaper view camera and back, but the Angulon has a >>fine reputation for having a large image circle, to be able to withstand the use of movements. The 40mm Hassy lens is four times the cost of the Angulon. ($4K vs. $1K).

Related Postings on shift lenses and resources are offloaded to this shift lens comments/postings page to speed downloads of this page!

From: "dr bob" [email protected] Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.medium-format Subject: Re: PC lens vs ladder Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 Architecture photography is a stretch in MF but not impossible. You certainly have the correct idea in attempting to get the film plane parallel to the structure. There are alternatives. MF lend itself to backing off a little and using a long focal length lens. This allowed me to get my equipment high enough on an adjacent structure or hill to gain freedom from the usual convergence effects. Then you can crop in the enlarger (unless you are using transparency film) employing MF's greater resolution. Another possibility (if you do darkroom work) is to tilt your easel so as to reduce the effects. I have done this effectively too. The drawback here is the very long time required for exposure as the enlarger lens must be stopped to the max. I finally gave up and went forward to the past and got a 4x5. Truly, dr bob. [email protected] wrote > I've been working on a project, photographing three story Victorian > structures in my area. This is just for myself, not looking to publish > and/or sell. All of my cameras are of a reflex WLF design and I do have > the wide angle "attachment" for one of them. Friends have been telling > me I need a PC (perspective control) lens to do this type of work. The > photography books I've looked at vacillate on the subject (see I did a > little research before coming here). But none of my MF cameras have > interchangeable lenses (bummer) so not only would I have to buy a kit, > but I'd also have to buy a PC lens. I know Kiev's got 'em cheap, but I > have a better idea. What if I stood on a ladder or on the top of my car > - would that be just as good? I have tried holding my cameras upside > down over my head but I get too much camera shake. I was think of > getting some sort of tall tripod-type device to hang the camera over my > head to do it this way and eliminate the camera shake. Would this be as > good as a PC lens as well? > Thanks

From: "Bill D. Casselberry" [email protected] Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.medium-format Subject: Re: PC lens vs ladder Date: Sat, 08 Feb 2003 Duncan wrote: > I'd be most concerned about doing the work without a tripod. > Hand holding as you have been will result in images that are > not as sharp as they could be. IMHO, this is a bigger issue > than the PC lens. It's simple to drill a hole into the top step of the stepladder and bolt on a ball or 3-way head. I had a 9 ft ladder I used that way once for "altitude adjustment" Bill Bill D. Casselberry ; Photography on the Oregon Coast