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d mount lens on a 16mm camera?


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Has anyone used a d mount lens(for 8mm) on a 16mm c mount?  With an adapter it could work, but I suspect there would be focus problems, 

aperture problems and vignetting. Any thoughts.???? thanks

ML

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The D mount lens natively sits 5.3mm closer to the film plane than C mount. As a result, if you put a D mount lens on a C mount camera, you would be effectively putting an extension tube on it, making the D mount lens only able to resolve an image very close, if at all. In order to get a setup that gives you a workable image with some distance between camera and subject, you would probably need a D mount with a focal length greater than 25mm, the longer, the better. This doesn't say anything about how the image circle will cover your film plane, there may or may not be vignetting.

Phil Forrest

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As always, there are exceptions. No hijack of the thread intended

The Suchánek-Meopta Admira 8s have the D-mount thread but the A/B/C-mount FFD. Meopta Mirar lenses protrude more than 7 mm or 0.276" rearwards, so no use on most D-mount cameras. But with an adapter the Mirar 12,5 mm and 35 mm can be put on some 16-mm. film cameras. That’s a flat disc with an outer and an inner thread. Image circles won’t cover the 16-mm. aperture. D-mount lenses of longer focal length will, say from about 50 mm up. An advantage would be less weight.

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There are a few D mount lens to C mount adapters on ebay, the more honest sellers admit that they really only work for very close macro shots. Less scrupulous sellers like this one don't mention it all, and blame their customers if they have any complaints:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/281771852321

That particular adapter has no flange, so it will simply keep screwing into the camera, which makes focussing the lens an interesting challenge. I suppose you could set the lens to infinity and use the adapter to focus, by screwing it in and out of the camera mount, but you'd want to be careful it doesn't hit anything delicate inside the camera or simply screw all the way inside. As Phil mentioned, the difference in flange depth is over 5mm, so infinity focus is probably impossible, but longer focal lengths would focus to medium distances if you could screw the adapter in a way. A lot of C mount 16mm cameras have baffles or turret plates that would prevent you screwing that sort of adapter in very far.

With flanged adapters that seat properly but keep the D mount lens 5.23mm further away than they need to be, you really wouldn't be able to focus very far even with longer focal lengths. A 75mm lens for instance wouldn't focus further than maybe 4 feet.

You'd also get vignetting on most lenses under 50 or even 75mm. 

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