Modding anamorphics to remove focusing element

[Brandt]

I have a couple Kowa 16h/8z lenses that I'm curious about modding so that only the anamorphic components are present, and the prime lens can focus through them. Sorta like a better quality panasonic or century. Has anyone looked into doing this?

[brucker]

been wondering about that as well,... but there must be a valid reason as to why the rear lens is needed.

there's a guy on vimeo that hacked a projector lens apart,.. think the video's called "cooking anamorphic" . he hacked it up and mounted it onto a rail system so he would have a greater focus range, but he still needed the front and back elements to focus.

[Brandt]

I'm wondering how different the front end of a Kowa is from a Lomo square front or a Panasonic LA7200, both of which are configured to take a prime lens.

Before watching this video, I thought that there were more elements. I wonder what would happen if the pair were set up as an air spaced couplet? It might be close enough that convergence is flipped and the assembly is now set for infinite focus, and a rear-mounted achromat could be used to re-flip the image.

The search continues...

[Caleb Genheimer]

If I had to guess, the projector anamorphics from Kowa, Sankor, etc. use a different optical design from the focus-through anamorphics. They were made during a time when Isco had a patent on focus-through technology, and the more recent focus-through designs are all 1.33x squeeze factor, from the La7200 to the Century/Optex units.

That being said, there are quite a lot of decent 2X projection lenses, and some downright brilliant ones (the Kowa 8Z/16H as an example). If someone smart figures out how to mod these into focus-through units (even if they must be permanently coupled to the spherical lens), they'd be able to make a pretty penny. I'd shell out a couple thousand to have my Kowa modded to focus-through and coupled to a Voigt f0.95.