Friday 5 February 2010

Pentax 110 adapted lenses on micro4/3

I thought I'd mention a bit about the adaptor for the Pentax 110 lenses, this is the adaptor I bought from ebay seller jinfinance.

Its nicely made, based on single machined aluminum billet with the required camera side mount simply screwed onto that.

Its good in that it really only has two parts to it.

Jin says on his site that some light can leak in the adaptor where the lens release mechanism is. I haven't seen anything to suggest that anything is visible in the images. I was out in the snow testing it and all seems fine.

I noticed that all my lenses are a wee bit wobbly on this adaptor (though the adaptor fits very nicely to my camera), I can see looking at the butterflied spring joint in the stainless steel section that it hasn't flared out well enough for a firm grasp. This however does not impact significantly and the lock latch system seems to be secure. Fortunately it gripped best on my biggest lens.

Some wobble was apparent when focusing, but who cares?

Particularly when you put a lens like the 50mm on it you realize how small this mount is. If you haven't used or had anything to do with Pentax 110 lenses you'll be surprised how small they are. Below is the 50mm sat beside the mount so you can see the small Pentax bayonet mount system:


it only has two flanges (well it is rather small and very light), which go into the mount. This would leave the lens flat to the camera, but in the case of this adaptor, sits proud a little bit.

which just goes to show how much extra space was needed for the mirror mechanism in the original tiny Pentax 110 cameras (and is not needed in the mirrorless direct view EVIL cameras).

I think it looks like a sweet combination on the camera:


110-50mm

its certainly now a very compact telephoto portrait lens, more so than the standard zoom which is only 45mm maxes out at f5.6 and bigger as well.

Costs:
Adaptor = $45
Pentax 110 50mm lens = $11

why not?

And lastly, have you read this post on the 110 lenses?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

This would look cool on my GF1 !

Anonymous said...

Under what category did you find the Pentax 110 lenses at keh?

obakesan said...

subminiature

lenses - fixed focal length

kït said...

does this mean no crop factor? since 110 film and PEN sensor size is the same... ? Kit

obakesan said...

Hi Kit

I think that its best to forget about crop factor and go along with just understanding if a lens is wide, normal or tele on a particular camera.

I use a large format camera, which has film which is 4x5 inches (not the 1 x 1.5 inches that 35mm film is). On this large format a wide angle lens is 90mm focal length.

See if this throws any light on the subject for you.

now iff that 20mm could be used on 35mm then it would simply not put light on enough of the film and be an ultra wide.

:-)

Vlad said...

The lens wobble is fixed by expanding the holding plates of the adapter. Insert a thin flat screwdriver in the slits in the sides of the three plates that interlock with the lens and twist to expand them. Start small. This should make for a snug fit.

Can you post any examples that you took with the 50mm? Especially 100% crops?

Thank you!

obakesan said...

Vlad

the post before this one has exactly what you ask for (samples from the 50mm)

:-)

5 lug to 5 lug billet said...

I just find this more interesting than any other blogs. That's all. Great post!