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Buying Kowa lens on Ebay and need advice


Alex Flowers

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Hi everyone. I'm buying a Kowa 8Z lens on ebay and received this email from the seller (quite possible he/she is on here)...

 

"I went to have it properly checked today, it is not fungus in the lens, the two back elements have slightly separated. I can send you a email with images i took today with a canon 5D 50mm and the 8Z (i still cannot see anything wrong with it)."

 

Will this be fine in the long term. Are there any other questions I should be asking?

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190842029661?_trksid=p5197.c0.m619

 

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Separation tends to have a negligible affect on the image, although the danger is it may spread and eventually cause problems. On the up side it doesn't look very pretty, which means you should pay less than you would for a pristine one, even though the image quality will be more or less identical.

 

It will of course also reduce your potential resale value.

 

Occasionally separation can be caused by excessive pressure on the cemented doublet, either from poor assembly or having been dropped, which distorts the components and can severely reduce the lens performance, but if the test photos supplied by the seller look OK that's likely not to be the case here.

 

 

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Okay, so I bought the lens for a reasonable price. What do I need to purchase to use this on a Canon 5D and what to use for a bolex H16. Is it a T mount adaptor I need for my canon and some kind of anamorphic clamp for the bolex?

 

(I know I should probably post this in the bolex bit, but I thought I'd get a quicker response here)

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T-mounts go between camera and lens. The Kowa goes in front of the camera lens and must be focused separately. If the front element of the lens rotates when focusing, the Kowa then has to be decoupled to align it vertically, so a filter stepping ring is not suitable.

The mount I have for my 8Z has threads each end, rotates internally and has a locking device, so I can just focus, unlock, align the scale and lock. It was custom-made for the Widescreen Centre about 30 years ago and I don't know where you'd find one now. I'd probably only let mine go with the anamorphic.

The clamps on ebay are rather unsuitable for a camera with a rotating front element because you have to reset all three screws every time you focus. They can also let the lens sag.

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Hmm. Well I'm new to using old lenses. I have a 50mm Olympus OM lens that I can attatch with an adaptor to the canon body. Then I could use step up rings to attatch that to the kowa and use rails to stop from sagging? Would that be a useable setup?

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