nickgorey

Infinity is perfect. The kicker in this set up is the use of the rear focal element from the B&H. Technically, you could take the element from it and house it with the two Sony elements and make a focuser useable with other scopes–– I believe those 58mm red ringed focusers you see on eBay are rehoused B&H focus optics––but that may be a little much to pay for a single optic. I plan on rehousing the whole setup and possibly adding an iris

Hey guys, I've been tinkering away for the past couple months and have finally come across something I'm very excited about. I cracked open the Sony VCL and, unlike the Helder, it is made up of 3 optics. I found by mounting the front two elements of the Sony adapter in front of the rear focal element of the B&H, you not only get a much wider, but acceptably sharp from edge to edge, but you also have a non-extending focus unit. Focus is accomplished by pushing or pulling the center optic of the now three focal elements. This quick tease is on s16 with a 35mm lens.

Unfortunately, the helder ended up being a bust. While I loved the added width, corner sharpness was awful, extending ridiculously too far into the middle of the frame. It would be useable for close ups, but I wanted it for landscape : /. Your aluminum ring looks great @Bold! Again, I am still waiting on mine.... In other news, I was able to get infinity focus with the original optics. I will post images once I'm home. I also found that the Helder adapter can be used as a range finder, it's optics are strong enough! Could be a viable solution for smaller anamorphics to avoid those corners, just gotta house them in a helicoid. Now if I could only crack open this Sony adapter...I am still so impressed by the quality of the glass in that thing....

@Bold you're machinist is a lot faster than mine, excited for the pictures. I've made a huge (at least I think so) discovery in terms of getting wider with this lens... My Helder .45x wide angle adapter arrived and my camera came back from repair and I got right to testing it out. As it turns out (and so I feared) the Helder is not .45x like the Sony is .7x, but more relative to the Sony more like .8x––so the Sony is actually wider. Not too upset with my $20 let down, I took the adapter off and noticed it was two pieces, a macro element and a wide element. In a fit of curiosity, I removed the front focal element of the B&H from my helicoid and replaced it with the wide angle part of the Helder. What do you know, it worked! Not only did it work, it seems to allow better infinity and a serious added wideness to the taking lens, as well as bringing close focus down to around 5 inches. On top of the added wideness of the 2x anamorphic, there seems to be an around .7x wideness added by the Helder element. Even better, it appears to eradicate the infinity focus issue, as well as bring my close focus down to ~4 inches! Some test video with a Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 (Take note of how wide it appears) on BMMCC (s16):

I have a Helder .45x wide angle adapter coming in the mail, can't find much of anything on this glass but I'm hoping to use it in conjunction with this Helios-33 35mm f/2 block http://www.ebay.com/itm/KMZ-Helios-33-f2-0-35mm-Russian-Lens-USSR-for-Cine-Camera-M28-mount-842171/352027171406?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D40130%26meid%3D9d114597d682411b892605153430f31c%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D252800510725&autorefresh=true for a ~24mm FOV on s16. The small diameter of the Helios should provide nice sensor coverage, fingers crossed for full coverage! Still waiting on this aluminum ring...guess that's what I get for telling my machinist I'm in no hurry...

Thanks! Do you have the specific Sony adapter @nahua suggested? I got it used off of Adorama for $13 and am really surprised by the IQ. My front element sits as far back in the helicoid as possible so it should work alright with yours...I'm interested to see how our machined rings come out!

My machinist is almost finished with the ring...standby! Also, a sharpness test with and without the wide angle adapter recommended @nahua, introduces some lovely green artifacts. 50mm on s16 means full sensor coverage, upscaling to 4k horizontal resolution.

@nahua i appreciate the input! as luck would have it, I ordered that exact wide angle adapter before even seeing your response! I'm still waiting on my metal mounting ring, but with a little gaff I've mounted my new helicoid which has a 58mm front thread and doesn't rotate when focused. Still trying to figure out the best mounting option, I sure do love @Bold's scope mount...

Hey guys, Opening this forum back up. I've been working with a CNC machinist to make an aluminum version of @Bold's polyurethane ring. Would anyone be interested in purchasing one of these rings? I'll post pictures once it's all done. Also, has anyone played with wide angle adapters and this lens? Thanks all.