15,- Pentax 6mm 1.2 (succes at last!)

I finally made myself a working Pentax 6mm! It took a lot of time, research, careful scrutiny and frustration and, most recently, the purchase of a Dremel but alas, I have a fast, wide lens that has infinity focus- and beyond! I also finally received my stepup ring so I could use my LCD variable ND-filter and shoot happily outside.

Cheap lens adapters

It should be fairly simple: you have a prime lens and you need an adapter to attach it to your digital camera. I don't need autofocus, electronic aperture control. Just a simple piece of metal to connect an old lens to a new camera. Well, nothing is simple...
I bought a few of these cheap adapters and never thought that they weren't 100% functional. Either they fit or they don't, I thought, rather simplistically. It turns out there's more to it than just that. The bad ones do not support infinity focus. I guess I have those.
I thought my Pentax 6mm wouldn't focus on infinity because the rear barrel needed more modification. I shaved it off so far I almost ruined the thing. But now I suspect it's probably the cheap lens adapter.... I ordered one double the price and see if that solves my problem! I'll keep you posted.

abused Pentax 6mm 1.2

SHAVED REAR TURNS GOLD!

I found someone who was willing and able to grind down the rear barrel of my Pentax 6mm 1.2 so that I could focus. Somehow the lens didn't sink low enough into the adapter to be able to focus. After some chiseling and machining about 2 mm is shaved off. And yes, it focuses! But not, to my great disappointment, into infinity...
So I paid someone 20,- to abuse my lens and it is effectively useless. Where did I go wrong? Others have done the same thing and have been more succesful. I'm sure I can fix it. I won't give up. This story is not over yet...
I wanted to try it out anyway and took my GH2 to the Sushi restaurant and was able to steal a few shots of the food before my wife got annoyed with my monomanic behaviour, ordered me to put the camera away and be social...




Modified (abused) Pentax 6mm 1.2 from Filmersblog on Vimeo.