M39 enlarger lens image circle

I was thinking of using my old enlarger lens on a DIY belllows to shoot macro, but I was wondering what the image circle was. It's a M39 mount Nikon.

Thanks!

Viernes wrote:

I was thinking of using my old enlarger lens on a DIY belllows to shoot macro, but I was wondering what the image circle was. It's a M39 mount Nikon.

Thanks!

That will depend on the lens design and the bellows extension you use. Such lenses are only required to cover the diagonal of the film format they were designed for (43mm for most 50mm lenses), but can give quite a bit more.

Why not experiment with the lens you have? Cut a suitable hole in a sheet of paper or card, mount the lens in the hole and project an image onto a sheet of white paper. Move the lens backwards and forwards and you'll be able to see the size of the image circle at different distances.

Viernes wrote:

I was thinking of using my old enlarger lens on a DIY belllows to shoot macro, but I was wondering what the image circle was. It's a M39 mount Nikon.

Thanks!

What focal length ? The longer the focal length, the larger the image circle.

Any EL-Nikkor from 50mm up will work fine for macro on the full frame (or smaller) formats. The 63mm is particularly good.

The further the lens is from the sensor, the larger the image circle.

Use an aperture of about f/11 to avoid diffraction blur.

Viernes wrote:

D Cox wrote:

Viernes wrote:

I was thinking of using my old enlarger lens on a DIY belllows to shoot macro, but I was wondering what the image circle was. It's a M39 mount Nikon.

Thanks!

What focal length ? The longer the focal length, the larger the image circle.

Any EL-Nikkor from 50mm up will work fine for macro on the full frame (or smaller) formats. The 63mm is particularly good.

The further the lens is from the sensor, the larger the image circle.

Use an aperture of about f/11 to avoid diffraction blur.

Sorry, you’re right, I skipped some information.

It’s a 50mm f2.8.

Yesterday I did some freelensing with an Olympus EM5.

Other than massive purple fringing the results where fine.

I was thinking of making a bellows that could attach different bodies/mounts (I use Pentax K and m4/3 bodies).

You may find a helicoid set up is more robust than bellows. E-bay has a large range of M42 helicoids, which would be easy to fit to both your ranges of bodies, and also take a simple step down ring to M39.

I use a combined C-mount/short M42 adapter on MFT to give the largest adjustment range on the helicoid, with this a 36-90 helicoid probably wont quite reach infinity focus with your 50mm but the extension will take you beyond life size. The next size down I remember is around 25-55 which would definitely give infinity on MFT, and also be a useful macro range on the Pentax.

I expect the entire helicoid set up MFT-M42, PK-M42, helicoid & M42-39 can be brought for less than two PK adapters for my BPM bellows!

Viernes wrote:

D Cox wrote:

Viernes wrote:

I was thinking of using my old enlarger lens on a DIY belllows to shoot macro, but I was wondering what the image circle was. It's a M39 mount Nikon.

Thanks!

What focal length ? The longer the focal length, the larger the image circle.

Any EL-Nikkor from 50mm up will work fine for macro on the full frame (or smaller) formats. The 63mm is particularly good.

The further the lens is from the sensor, the larger the image circle.

Use an aperture of about f/11 to avoid diffraction blur.

Sorry, you’re right, I skipped some information.

It’s a 50mm f2.8.

A good lens.

Yesterday I did some freelensing with an Olympus EM5.

Other than massive purple fringing the results where fine.

I would not expect to see purple fringing with that lens on a bellows.

I was thinking of making a bellows that could attach different bodies/mounts (I use Pentax K and m4/3 bodies).

I suggest buying a cheap PK mount bellows, an adapter from PK to M4/3, and an adapter from M39 to PK.

It really is not worth spending your valuable time on making a bellows.

petrochemist wrote:

Viernes wrote:

D Cox wrote:

Viernes wrote:

I was thinking of using my old enlarger lens on a DIY belllows to shoot macro, but I was wondering what the image circle was. It's a M39 mount Nikon.

Thanks!

What focal length ? The longer the focal length, the larger the image circle.

Any EL-Nikkor from 50mm up will work fine for macro on the full frame (or smaller) formats. The 63mm is particularly good.

The further the lens is from the sensor, the larger the image circle.

Use an aperture of about f/11 to avoid diffraction blur.

Sorry, you’re right, I skipped some information.

It’s a 50mm f2.8.

Yesterday I did some freelensing with an Olympus EM5.

Other than massive purple fringing the results where fine.

I was thinking of making a bellows that could attach different bodies/mounts (I use Pentax K and m4/3 bodies).

You may find a helicoid set up is more robust than bellows. E-bay has a large range of M42 helicoids, which would be easy to fit to both your ranges of bodies, and also take a simple step down ring to M39.

A "simple step down ring" is likely to have threads of filter pitch, which is much finer than the threads on lenses. What you are suggesting would be called an "adapter M39 lens to M42". It should be easily found.

I use a combined C-mount/short M42 adapter on MFT to give the largest adjustment range on the helicoid, with this a 36-90 helicoid probably wont quite reach infinity focus with your 50mm but the extension will take you beyond life size. The next size down I remember is around 25-55 which would definitely give infinity on MFT, and also be a useful macro range on the Pentax.

I expect the entire helicoid set up MFT-M42, PK-M42, helicoid & M42-39 can be brought for less than two PK adapters for my BPM bellows!

D Cox wrote:

A "simple step down ring" is likely to have threads of filter pitch, which is much finer than the threads on lenses. What you are suggesting would be called an "adapter M39 lens to M42". It should be easily found.

I'm not aware of any filters in M42 size, there are two types of M42 lens mounts, M42x1 (usually called 'M42' or 'Pentax screw') & M42x0.75 (usually called 'T2' but annoyingly some suppliers just use 'M42')

I've not seen any filters in M39, but admittedly there is a m39x0.5 size around.

Searching e-bay for 'M42 - M39 step' I got 28 hits, only two of which referred to the filter thread. Most hits specifically mentioned lens mount.

D Cox wrote:

Viernes wrote:

D Cox wrote:

Viernes wrote:

I was thinking of using my old enlarger lens on a DIY belllows to shoot macro, but I was wondering what the image circle was. It's a M39 mount Nikon.

Thanks!

What focal length ? The longer the focal length, the larger the image circle.

Any EL-Nikkor from 50mm up will work fine for macro on the full frame (or smaller) formats. The 63mm is particularly good.

The further the lens is from the sensor, the larger the image circle.

Use an aperture of about f/11 to avoid diffraction blur.

Sorry, you’re right, I skipped some information.

It’s a 50mm f2.8.

A good lens.

Yesterday I did some freelensing with an Olympus EM5.

Other than massive purple fringing the results where fine.

I would not expect to see purple fringing with that lens on a bellows.

Here's a quick test. Magnification is about 2.5X.

There was a little bit of red/cyan fringing, of the kind that is easily corrected in PP. No purple fringing.

Vibration is already beginning to be a problem at that magnification. It would be best to use flash for lighting. This test was in daylight, and there is some loss of sharpness I think.

I was thinking of making a bellows that could attach different bodies/mounts (I use Pentax K and m4/3 bodies).

I suggest buying a cheap PK mount bellows, an adapter from PK to M4/3, and an adapter from M39 to PK.

It really is not worth spending your valuable time on making a bellows.

Not sure how big is the image circle, but I think it big.

I use it on an APS-C camera and doing very extream tilt for DOF control (see proof of example at :

https://www.flickr.com/photos/60192562@N06/albums/72157627176495034

)

If the image circle is not sufficiently big, I will hit extream vignette.

-kk

Enlarger lenses will take a FF ( or larger ) negative and project on to a large piece of paper.   So the image circle will be large enough to cover APS-C or FF sensor.    It will be fine from that perspective.    It is pretty easy to tell, just hand holding it and projecting a scene ( like a light fixture ) on a piece of  paper.

Reverse it and it will work a treat.

http://www.savazzi.net/photography/enlargerlensespm.htm (this guy is a professional scientist using imaging for his research)

https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/technique/expert_advice/how-to-use-enlarger-lenses-11492

If you don't own a bellows, I would suggest looking for an "M42 mount" bellows, because you can get cheap adapters M42 to "any known camera mount" on ebay or amazon

And:

http://extreme-macro.co.uk/reversed-enlarger-lenses/

Nice flicker photos

Thanks.

I have a few minolta bellows. Took one apart and use the bellow part and some flash bracket to semi-freehand.

-kkx

A really good and cheap alternative is the Spiratone Vario-Dupliscope.

I just posted this little review of it in the adapted lens forum.