DOF adapter 01

By admin (when... 31/08/2009 @ 16:00:54, Where Film Making, linked 16 times)

And there she is, my very first 35mm Depth of Field Adapter, and it's a spinner.
Basically the ugly grey metal box houses an old CD motor, holding a blank, opaque-transparent CD. The 35mm still camera lens on the front projects the image onto the spinning CD, and the video camera (with macro lens) focuses on the image, but not the blemishes on the CD as it's spinning too fast.

Why? To reduce depth of field (how much of the image is in focus).

Take a look at this film I made, which shows some footage without and with the adapter:



Once you've seen that I think you get the idea as to why the adapter is a nice accessory to add to ones arsenal.

Here are some more pictures of the "beast".











Now I have to block off all the holes to stop light getting in the sides.

So how much did it cost? Uhm, Nothing... The box is an old PC power supply case, the plastic rails were leftovers from Ikea, The lens mount is off an old camera which I no longer use. The CD motor was lying around after I broke my portable CD player about 10 years ago (I throw nothing away). The macro lens is half of a combo macro wide angle I already had, and isn't fastened to the beast. The lens I had already, it's a M42 mount. I had the option of using my Minolta lenses, but they don't have aperture dials.

Next I want to make a frame so I can mount the video camera on my medium format still camera body (guess who has a medium format fisheye...), and I'm going to try and make a really small adapter for my M39 Leica thread lenses.

Watch this space.

(p)Link