Oliver Sutton

Haha, that's Miami on the Gold Coast (Australia). Our summer is in December and we have an abundance of exotic animals, killer snakes, killer spiders, killer jelly-fish, killer hamsters :D It's not like the movies depicts it, you're more likely to get abducted by aliens than get killed by an animal here.

I mainly filed the sankor to make it sit snug and to avoid light entering through the gap

And that's before ( i think), but the with an aperture at 16

Here's a shot i took 2 days ago.  

What size is it?

Hi guys this is my first post and i'm gonna share a DIY clamp i did. I've read somewhere that a Helios 44M is the perfect companion for the Sankor 16C , so i bought that, After blowing my budget i was left with not much for a clamp. At first i used a step-down adapter which ended up looking pretty bad:   [attachment=568:1.JPG] [attachment=569:2.JPG] [attachment=570:3.JPG] [attachment=571:4.JPG]         It did the job though, for a while :D After being concerned about the safety of that rig i decided to get to work. For that used a 52mm extension tube that i found on eBay for $13: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/52mm-Diameter-Extension-Tube-21mm-long-for-Nikon-ES-1-/290668797662?pt=AU_Cameras_Photographic_Accessories&hash=item43ad35dede Tools needed are a drill, a tap set (looks like a screw to create thread in holes), 3 screws or bolts or hex screw, and some oil (to use the tap set, it has to go smooth). I ended up using M5 hex screws (metric 5mm). Unfortunatly i didn't document the procedure but it's very easy, there's plenty of guides on google. Clamp version 2.0 looked more promising:   [attachment=572:5.JPG] [attachment=573:6.JPG] [attachment=574:7.JPG] [attachment=575:8.JPG] [attachment=576:9.JPG] [attachment=577:10.JPG]         Looks pretty similar to the clamp from Vid-Atlantic, doesn't it ?   As you can see on those pics, my Sankor has no thread. Well, i filed it as much as possible without breaking it. I didn't do that randomly, i wanted the lens as snug as possible to the clamp. It also allowed me to sit the Sankor very close to the glass of the Helios by simply removing the front ring (of the Helios):   [attachment=578:11.JPG] [attachment=579:12.JPG]     And the result is a very tight and snug unit that actually look like one single lens:     [attachment=580:13.JPG] [attachment=581:14.JPG] [attachment=582:15.JPG]     I already had all the tools needed so cost of production ended up being $13 (tube) + $2 (hex screws) If you guys can use your hands and a drill, you can do it too. :D