Fisheye Lens for a Rangefinder or Mirrorless Camera

Intro: Fisheye Lens for a Rangefinder or Mirrorless Camera

Fisheye lens for a screw mount leica or other screw mount rangefinder
While I realize there are very few people shooting a Leica, particularly a very old Leica such as a screw mount series, this is a fun project to repurpose a (censored) camera with a decent lens to a camera that I think is one of the best ever made.

STEP 1: Prep

So you're not only going to need a Leica but also a Lomo Fisheye camera. You're going to need to remove the lens from the camera by taking it apart.

STEP 2: Sanding

You're going to need to sand down the back of the lens. Use a piece of tape to cover up the aperture so that dust and shavings don't fall inside.
You will need to test the focus of the lens to make sure it's sharp. my way of doing this was to take another M39 camera I had (an old FED 3b) and locking up the shutter and holding a piece of sanded glass to the back continuously test focus after sanding. Don't over sand!

STEP 3: The Mount

now you will need a Mount for the lens, plastic M39 body caps and be bought on ebay quite cheap. Buy one and drill a hole in the center , remember the mount it going to bring the lens further away from the camera so maybe this should have actually been step 2, yeah, do this as step 2 than do the lens sanding. Cool, now we're organized.

If you have an M mount camera you can use an m39-m adapter to use it on post screw mount leicas. (or on a Bessa or Ikon)

STEP 4: Attach the Mount

Cool, you're almost there! now you just need to get your sh*t together, literally you're going to need to attach your mount to the lens. Your lens focuses correctly right?! My way of attaching the two pieces was to use caulk. Why? Because everyone loves caulk! Also is light tight when its thick you're going to need to cover the outside and the inside of the lens. again cover the aperture with tape!

STEP 5: You're Still Here?! Guess What? You're Done!

There you have it! all done!

PS.
if you also have a Diana F+ with the fisheye viewfinder or if you used the Lomo Fisheye No.2 than you can use the fisheye viewfinder

(images in the examples have been lens corrected)

Comments

[ProfHankD]

Expensive way to get a lousy "fisheye" (distorting ultrawide) -- the Lomo has become stylish enough to no longer be cheap. Some of the cheap fisheye converters actually give decent IQ at a lower cost... although they don't come with a viewfinder.

[ar_caver]

IIIC, correct? What year is yours?

[commiejay]

yep, 1946.

now keep in mind I am a Leica user so I used an M39 mount and have an M adapter for my M8 but this can but this mod can be done with pretty much any rangefinder or mirrorless camera or the Olympus PEN-F SLR (but that's going to be the only SLR I can think of that you'll be able to do this on)

micro four thirds cameras are pretty popular right now, you can substitute the M39 body cap for an M4/3 one and in this case the lens barrel will need to be extended rather than filed down. but on an M4/3 camera the smaller sensor size will result in an equivalent focal length of 20mm. on a Leica M8 it would be 13mm APS-C sized sensors it would be 15mm and on a regular film camera it's 10mm.