# Playing with some vintage toys



## crimbfighter (Jun 23, 2015)

Shot using my just acquired bellows focus rail. My dad found it in one of his many piles of things he had long forgotten he had. It's in absolute pristine condition and has a third generation 55mm f/3.5 (pre Ai) lens attached. There is also a slide duplicator attachment, but it's not affixed in this photo. If I understand the documents I've read on the bellows attachment, with full extension and focus set to minimum focusing distance, it's capable of 3.4:1 magnification. I did have to add an extension tube between the camera body and mount so the body would clear the mount when attaching it. It's also capable of shift in the lens mount, but I'm not sure how to utilize that yet. It is a giant PITA to focus when the bellows are extended, though. There is so much light loss that I have to illuminate the subject with a flashlight to get focus. I can't wait to play with it some more.




Here are a couple shots playing around with it. It can be quite sharp, but I like the softness to the IQ, as well. These are fairly abstract.


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## Derrel (Jun 23, 2015)

Nice job on the floral closeup shots, dealing with the shapes and forms.


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## crimbfighter (Jun 23, 2015)

Derrel said:


> Nice job on the floral closeup shots, dealing with the shapes and forms.


Thanks!


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## BrickHouse (Jun 23, 2015)

Beautiful!


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## crimbfighter (Jun 23, 2015)

BrickHouse said:


> Beautiful!


Thank you!


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## Derrel (Jun 23, 2015)

For those wondering about this rig...The need to use some type of spacer, like a short extension tube, between the lens mount and the rear standard of this bellows is due to the overhang of many modern camera prisms, which are often quite pronounced compared to the old cameras like the original Nikon F and the Nikkormat lines, which is where a lot of these older pieces of gear have their origins, back in that Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon era. Modern SLR and d-slr cameras with built-in flash units can have a lot of forward hang-over. But there are also case where the prism on cameras without flash units built in can have too much overhang for certain, older lenses. I have one old exotic lens that will NOT mount on the D2x because of interference from the prism; the same lens does mount with no clearance issue on the D3x. The added spacing will affect magnification calculations a bit, but it's a very common issue when fitting "old" bellows with "new" Nikons, and there's a lot of on-line information out there about what fits with what, either with or without a spacer.

The 55mm f/3.5 pre-Ai lens is RUGGEDLY built, and will work as it was sold, unmodified (aka 'pre-Ai') on all of the baby Nikons like D40,D40x,D60,D3000- and D5000-series models. Rough condition ones can be had for $30-$35 on-line.


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## crimbfighter (Jun 23, 2015)

Derrel said:


> For those wondering about this rig...The need to use some type of spacer, like a short extension tube, between the lens mount and the rear standard of this bellows is due to the overhang of many modern camera prisms, which are often quite pronounced compared to the old cameras like the original Nikon F and the Nikkormat lines, which is where a lot of these older pieces of gear have their origins, back in that Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon era. Modern SLR and d-slr cameras with built-in flash units can have a lot of forward hang-over. But there are also case where the prism on cameras without flash units built in can have too much overhang for certain, older lenses. I have one old exotic lens that will NOT mount on the D2x because of interference from the prism; the same lens does mount with no clearance issue on the D3x. The added spacing will affect magnification calculations a bit, but it's a very common issue when fitting "old" bellows with "new" Nikons, and there's a lot of on-line information out there about what fits with what, either with or without a spacer.
> 
> The 55mm f/3.5 pre-Ai lens is RUGGEDLY built, and will work as it was sold, unmodified (aka 'pre-Ai') on all of the baby Nikons like D40,D40x,D60,D3000- and D5000-series models. Rough condition ones can be had for $30-$35 on-line.


Thanks for the info. I was looking for an Ai conversion kit for it so I could mount it directly to my D800, but it doesn't appear that Nikon make the conversion kit for this lens. I may take it to a local camera shop that does Ai conversions by milling the flange down so it can meter properly and not interfere.


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