artiswar

Order and honored the discount. £560 to my door via FedEx in 3-5 business days. As soon as I get it, I'll try to get some test up. What does everyone want to see? @comurit Thank you so much for all the work and correspondence.

As soon as this is available, I will be ordering. I'll have tests up with a hypergonar and various Russian M42 glass on an A7S, just if anyone was curious to see something detailed before buying. I'll try to make it as in depth as possible. In fact, if there are specifics that the community wants to see, post them up here!

So the discount will just be a username mention in an email upon release?

Wonderful news! Still interested in getting some tests out to the community to advise purchase.

Out of curiosity, has there been mention of availability, regardless of discount? I'd be willing to bite the bullet at full price to get some full frame and S35 tests up.

Holymanta/Vizelex ND Throttle?

After much debate and tinkering with an attempted DIY solution, I've decided to add my name this this list.

Some diagrams! Here's what I was working with in my last build And here's the order on the way: As you can see, the change in focal length greatly decreases the amount of travel required from infinity to close focus. The converging rays indicate the focal point. Excited to keep tinkering!

Where'd everyone go! Placed a second order with Surplus Shed after having tinkered with this: http://arachnoid.com/OpticalRayTracer/ Used what was available in reasonable diameters and input the parameters into the ray tracer. Hopefully the pieces I order work out. In the mean time, it seems like equal, strong dioptric value glass is the key. The stronger the power, the less movement required. Ideally, a concave lens with a power of -25 and a convex lens with a power of +25 should be ideal, just expensive/hard to find. Emailed a Chinese lens manufacturer about making these so we'll see where this goes. Further looking into the use of wide angle adapters, it seems they're comprised of a negative lens and an achromat which would explain why this works in place of solely a negative lens. I'm thinking a .5 and a +10 diopter might be workable but the travel distances would increase.

All three were Cinelux WA, Canon 50mm 1.8, and a GH2. Very sharp, very crisp and defined flares. No longer own this and kind regret getting rid of it. Own a version 2 Hypergonar now, which in comparison has much less crisp but very long flares. I would say the Cinelux is more clinical and the Hypergonar more filmic and organic.

I have the same math. The only thing I'm having trouble figuring out is how the powers interact (ie, what power glass would shorten the distance of movement required to focus) Just got a hook up with an optician that works locally and has some tinkering toys at his house. Hopefully I'll gain more info there.

Also, anyone with some knowledge about optics, what type of powers should I look for in terms of focal length to minimize the lens movement?

Thanks! Realized I didn't include any of that on here. The lenses are about 6 inches apart at their farthest (focus point of around 6"), at infinity (this was all interior so it's kinda difficult to confirm) the lenses almost touch, maybe an inch? Anamorphic is the second iteration of the 16mm Hypergonar S.T.O.P.. Beautiful flares. Taking lens for the majority of the clips was the Panny 14-140 usually around 50mm on the BMPCC. I should also mention, the last clip is without this single focus thing. Just an extra clip. Like I said, these small elements were just a proof of concept. I need higher power lenses (less movement), larger lenses (no vignetting), and a mounting system (zip ties, sticky putty, and adapter rings look terrible)

HD should be up soon but here it is. I'm using plano-convex lens mounted to the front element of my anamorphic. On the rails, I've mounted a plano-concave lens (pretty ghetto set up, but works enough for proof of concept). Moving the rail mounted lens further away gives me closer focus, in fact, pretty fucking close. Sharp as can be too. All I need to do now is figure out the power of the lenses, buy larger elements, and house them. Baby steps.

Is there some strange grading going on here? The colours look really off.

Very interesting results. The abberation is really pronounced with the close up filters. Surplus Shed glass finally shipped and will be arriving Monday, excited to test. I think the first thing I'm going to try is some type of focusable achromat. We'll see.

Now that's a pretty set up. Any footage? What diopters do you have back there? Seems we have a similar set up, my footage is just pretty soft.

My thought process here is that when I get my Surplus Shed glass I'll be able to do that very thing.

Wide angle seems multi element, as does the macro element, unfortunately too strong. I threw an old 10+ diopter in and the focus throw seems about right. Terrible blur due to the single element, I assume. I've got some Surplus Shed glass coming in, so I'd rather hold off and play with that until I splurge for a +10 achromat. Anything vintage that is achromatic with that kind of power?

Moving the wide angle away gets closer focus. Building on this, close focus seems easily attainable (at 1.7 on my Minolta glass, it's a bit fuzzy) but infinity is not quite there. I think it may be due to the fact that I can't get the smaller macro lens close enough to the wide angle bit. Any input?

http://tinypic.com/r/33di4o2/8 Found this. Turns out, separating the wide angle section from the macro section and placing them in front of the anamorphic, moving the wide bit further from the macro bit allows me to focus. Essentially a wide angle and a diopter packaged together, yes? Also, I'm not quite sure why (maybe the hand held testing) but infinity was somewhat fuzzy. Any input on all this?

Scored a Vivitar .43 Wide Angle and a 20+ Tessar diopter today at a small camera shop. Tinkering soon. Very interested.

Well since we're hammering away at this, I'll chime in. I'm all for the democratization of technology. I saw these (FM whosawhatzit) and immediately started pouring over patents and the such, shortly finding that Iscos are afocal blocks with a variable diopter in the front. So here we have to individuals capitalizing on this "revelation." God Bless America. I, on the other hand, and planning on finding a cheaper solution with some "surplus" (surplusshed.com) and some shoddy test builds. Lucky for me, I have a friend that currently has a satellite (imaging, of course) in orbit and he's more than happy to hash out some details. Once I have some concrete findings, I'm sharing it with the world wide web. Every creative can benefit from this. Preach on @tonydtv!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kodak-Telek-Lens-Series-6-VI-2-/121433118812?pt=Camera_Filters&hash=item1c45fa585c Give that a go. Teleks are no longer made but have varying negative powers.

Just got it in the other day and it is clean as all get out. Some smudges but no fungus. Waiting on my painfully back ordered BMPCC to arrive and then hopefully I'll get some tests up. Gorgeous lens and this one seems to focus just past 1m. Fingers crossed.