divergeorge

Your picture of the lady was magnificent!

gekko11 Loc: Las Cruces NM

my favorite ones are the woman (it reminds me of a painting i saw in a restaurant , i wanted to steal it off the wall!) and the bamboo dripping water. Excellent, thought provoking shots all !!

Nalu Loc: Southern Arizona

Lovely!

Salo Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

Fascinating images. I don't think I've ever seen such an unusual series of captivating images before. The poppy bulbs picture (next to last image) is simply mesmerizing to me. Truly great art to my eyes. Thank you for sharing them.

ebbote Loc: Hockley, Texas

Very good Toby.

2Much Loc: WA

Fascinating, and beautiful all. Thanks!

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

Different projection lenses have very different looks. I could post photos with others that look very different than these. Most are not so radical. The good thing is that projection lenses tend to be relatively cheap and often give nice effects.

Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga

What type of adapters are needed? For Nikon or Olympus M4/3rds or both? is infinity focus maintained with Nikon if the adapters are available?

RWCRNC Loc: Pennsylvania

Stunning

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

It depends on the lens, and the flange distance. Since the lenses have neither aperture nor focusing mechanism, you have to generally attach them to a focusing helicoid. Various sizes of these are available on eBay, made in China, but quite decent and cheap. I managed to mount some on a DSLR, but it's often hard to achieve anything near infinity focus with lenses less that 100mm or so, and even some of those have very short flange distances. It really depends on the lens. Mostly I am using them on a Sony A7Rii, which has a very thin body, so that lens + helicoid is still not too far away from the sensor for focus at a distance.

Of course they work on MFT cameras, but since you are only using the very center of the image on small sensors, you tend to lose some of the interesting effects that many of these lenses create on the edge of the image circle.

For instance, the 100mm f2 lens I used on the first five of these is quite large in diameter. I got a M65 focusing helicoid:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M65-to-M65-Adjustable-Focusing-Helicoid-Adapter-25-55mm-Macro-Extension-Tube-/131923543384?hash=item1eb7418558:g:kzYAAOSwUxNXh67K

The lens barrel was about 62mm, so I wrapped enough PVC vinyl electrician's tape around it to fit snugly down in the helicoid. That's nice because it's pretty secure but can still be taken apart. Then I needed to attach that to my Sony. That took a M65 to M42 adapter ring, and then a M42 to Sony NEX ring:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cnscope-M65-x1-Female-to-M42-x1mm-Male-Thread-Camera-adapter-For-Helicoids-/222062214579?hash=item33b3f07db3:g:u-4AAOSwxcRW8fkL

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Slim-1mm-M42-Lens-to-Sony-E-Mount-NEX-Adapter-for-use-with-Focusing-Helicoid-/322432926007?epid=0&hash=item4b12800137:g:BakAAOSwtfhYry4l

There are also projection lens adapters in various diameters that have set screws to hold the lens barrel firmly and have a M42 screw mount (or sometimes other sizes) at the bottom. There is a guy RAFCamera, who will custom make these mounts to order in whatever size you need for about $50 or so.

You can get M42 to many other mount adapters--MFT and other mirrorless mounts, as well as for DSLRs. The problem with many DSLRs is that the mirror box means that the lens is too far away from the sensor and you can only focus very close, as I mentioned before. The helicoids do come in different lengths, but often even the shortest of them (12-17mm usually) won't work on DSLR with many lenses. On the other hand, some of the projection lenses have quite large flange distances and will work fine on DSLRs with a helicoid. Unfortunately there is no real way to tell until you get the lens, or somebody who has a similar one will have to tell you. I have a nice 50mm f1.0 Meopta Meostigmat projection lens, but it has such a short flange distance that even with the lens sitting flush up against the Sony body, it still only focuses to 20 cm or so. So that one is really only good for close up stuff.

But really anyway you don't want to focus too much in the distance. Then these lenses lose their unique look and end up essentially being crappy normal lenses. There is always a certain distance where the bokeh is best, depending on the focal length and the max aperture--but usually no more than a couple of feet away.

Sony with 100mm f1.2

(Download)

jim-bob Loc: Beaverton, o

Drop dead gorgeous photos, thank you
Jim in Or.