Lens Adaptor For Olympus Lenses

georgedingwall · Post by **georgedingwall** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 2:12 am

Hi all,

I'm looking for an adaptor so that I can use an Olympus OM fit lens on my system.

I want to attach it to either an M42 thread or to a Nikon F mount.

I seem to be having a bit of trouble locating such an adaptor. If anyone knows where I might locate an adaptor, I would appreciate some help.

Thanks for any help, bye for now.

Epidic · Post by **Epidic** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 6:02 am

Borg telescopes may have such an adapter. They have a very sophisticated line of tubes and mounts.

Is M42 the standard for a T-mount? If it is, then most telescope retailers will have camera mounts for those threads.

georgedingwall · Post by **georgedingwall** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:34 am

Epidic wrote:Borg telescopes may have such an adapter. They have a very sophisticated line of tubes and mounts.

Is M42 the standard for a T-mount? If it is, then most telescope retailers will have camera mounts for those threads.

Hi there,

Thanks for the tip. I'll have a look at Borg's range of adaptors.

I have a T Adaptor for fitting an Olympus OM1 to a telescope, but what I'm looking for is a way to connect an Olympus lens to a Nikon camera. I have an adaptor which can attach an M42 thread to the Nikon, so if I could find an OM to M42 or OM to Nikon F mount, I could attach my Olympus OM lens to my camera.

I thought of using more than one adaptor, but can't seem to find a suitable combination. I can find an OM adaptor for a Canon body, but have not yet found an adaptor to convert the canon to Nikon. I don't even know if this is possible. I also though of getting an Olympus bellows, but can't make out if that makes my situation better or worse.

Bye for now.

Epidic · Post by **Epidic** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:34 am

Olympus to Nikon? Are you expecting to keep infinity focus? The flange focal distance will not be the same. Why not just get a Nikon lens?

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:56 am

I doubt George wants it for infinity focus because he has enough Micro Nikkors for that.

There seem to be plenty of adapters to use Nikon lenses on Olympus, but not for the reason Epidic implies to use Olympus lenses on Nikon. Even the M42 adapters are for mounting M42 lenses on Olympus digital cameras.

Try SRB George they sell standard adapters plus will make off standards or specials to order:-

http://www.srbfilm.co.uk/

DaveW

georgedingwall · Post by **georgedingwall** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 9:36 am

Epidic wrote:Olympus to Nikon? Are you expecting to keep infinity focus? The flange focal distance will not be the same. Why not just get a Nikon lens?

Hi Epidic,

I want to try connecting an Olympus bellows lens to my fine focusing system, so I just need to have the lens at the front of the light path. The only things I need it to do is to be able to stop down, if necessary, after focusing and to pass light through a bellows or some extension tubes to my camera.

I have some options for doing that at the moment.

One is to find an adaptor that will allow me to directly couple the lens to a Nikon F mount adaptor that I have on the front of my Pentax M42 bellows.

The other is to find an OM to M42 adaptor so that I could couple the lens directly to the M42 bellows.

I also have a Nikon F mount 52mm reversing adaptor and several stepdown rings. If I could find an OM adaptor which would connect to almost any thread size, I think I could couple the OM lens to my system.

I know Rik Littlefield uses Olympus lenses on his Canon. So I thought about using an OM to Canon Plus a Canon to Nikon or Canon to M42 adaptor, but there doesn't seem to any of those about either.

I t is possible that I may have to consider making or modifying something so that I can use the lens, but if I can find some ready made adaptors that can do the job, that would be better.

Bye for now

Epidic · Post by **Epidic** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 11:48 am

George, have you ever thought of just sticking with one manufacturer?

I am at a loss for a solution. Sorry.

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:28 pm

George - You've probably already searched on 'Olympus Converter' - but if not, there seem to be several cheapish items on Ebay (in uk) at present - should you decide to go the DIY route, as this'd provide the mating fitting.

I've also got various adaptors which came with bellows etc - a bit late to go ferreting around now, but will have a look Sat if you want?

pp

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/A-ENSINOR-AUTO-TE ... dZViewItem

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:42 am

George,
Don't know of an Oly-Nikon adapter.
There are many used short Olympus extension tubes around (just check eBay). That'll get you the Olympus female mount. Get a Nikon or M42 "male" somewhere (another old extension tube perhaps) and some good epoxy. You then have your adapter.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 1:17 am

Thinking about it you will need the Olympus lens reversed on the bellows anyway so the Olympus bayonet is not important because the Olympus lens will be attached by it's filter threads, therefore simply a Nikon BR-2A reversal ring and a step up or step down ring, if the lens does not have 52mm filter threads?

DaveW

georgedingwall · Post by **georgedingwall** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 1:33 am

puzzledpaul wrote:George - You've probably already searched on 'Olympus Converter' - but if not, there seem to be several cheapish items on Ebay (in uk) at present - should you decide to go the DIY route, as this'd provide the mating fitting.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the tip.

I'd prefer not add any more glass into the light path.

Charles Krebs wrote:George,
Don't know of an Oly-Nikon adapter.
There are many used short Olympus extension tubes around (just check eBay). That'll get you the Olympus female mount. Get a Nikon or M42 "male" somewhere (another old extension tube perhaps) and some good epoxy. You then have your adapter.

Hi Charles,

This is similar to something I had already thought of. I'm going to join an Olympus rear lens cap and a Nikon Body cap together and then cut out the middle. If that turns out to be stiff enough, I'll make do with that. If not, I'll get hold of a couple of old extension tubes as you suggest and try it that way.

I've also emailed a company that claims to make adaptors for any make of lens to any make of camera for a price quote on an Oly/Nikon adaptor, so we'll see how much that might cost.

Thanks for the help guys. Bye for now.

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:16 am

<< I'd prefer not add any more glass into the light path. >>

George - wasn't the intention at all, just a different slant on the approach suggested by Charles re extn tubes.

Sometimes the mount half that you're after has been machined (as an integral feature) from the extension tube itself - whereas the same mount part on a converter is (generally) a separately machined part, that's attached to the 'tube' via small screws ... therefore easily removed and offering a flat flange on the rear to which the other bit can be fixed.

This can also offer less (unwanted?) additional extension than using even the thinnest extn tube (unless machined).

With the quality of the kit you're using, it's unlikely I'd suggest using a 'no name' 2x converter, either ... when you're after the sort results you are

pp

georgedingwall · Post by **georgedingwall** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:26 am

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the clarification.

It seems I now have a few options. I'm sure at least one of them will be successful. I'm waiting for the Araldite Epoxy to dry on the lens/body cap option at the moment. All I have to do then is cut out the centre, and I'll be able to give it a try.

Bye for now.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:56 pm

Sorry I'm late tuning in for this one, guys -- I've been off hiking for a couple of days.

georgedingwall wrote:I know Rik Littlefield uses Olympus lenses on his Canon.

Yeah, but I cheat -- my Olympus bellows macro lenses fit on the front of an Olympus bellows, so the adapters are at the back end. It happens that the back end of Olympus bellows are unusually easy to deal with, since they actually consist of an Olympus bayonet flange screwed to another flange that's just a generic cylinder. Cylinders are pretty to make on a lathe, and my first adapter (an M42 thread) was quickly machined from some ABS plastic plumbing parts! My current setup is a bit more sophisticated, but not much.

I'm expecting George's expoxied caps to work fine -- assuming that the epoxy sticks to the caps, that is.

George, be sure to stress test that glue joint each and every time you mount the lens, before letting go of it. Sometimes epoxies and plastics don't play well together, and one of their failure modes is suddenly coming loose some weeks or months down the road.

The only other wrinkle is that if your Olympus bellows macro lens has an "auto" diaphragm, then you'll need to rig up something to make the diaphragm close. There's a lever on the back of the lens to do that, as well as a small button on the side of the lens, opposite the one that releases the bayonet mount. One or the other should be easy to fake out.

DaveW wrote:Thinking about it you will need the Olympus lens reversed on the bellows anyway

Not if it's really an Olympus bellows macro lens. They're designed sort of "pre-reversed", expecting to have the long conjugate distance on the sensor side.

Epidic wrote:George, have you ever thought of just sticking with one manufacturer?

What?!

And spoil all of our bodging fun?

--Rik

georgedingwall · Post by **georgedingwall** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 9:24 am

Hi Rik,

Thanks for the pointers.

I've rigged up the bodged lens fitting and it works OK. However, when the lens arrived, I noticed that the bayonet end of the lens is removable and this leaves an RMS thread on the end of the lens. I decided to try this on the temporary adaptor I made for mounting microscope objectives, and this actually seems like a better fit.

I'll try both mounts, to see if there is any optical difference between them. I'm not quite sure if the one I made with the caps is giving me a truly perpendicular light path.

Anyway, I just ran off a quick stack at F8 with the bellows lens. I'll test all of the apertures later.

This image of my trusty screw has a field of view of about 2mm with just my Pentax bellows fitted. This is less than half of the extension I would normally use to get a 3mm field of view with an enlarger lens. It was made from about 20 frames of 0.1 mm each.

I'm fairly pleased with the amount of surface detail that is present at this scale. All I need now is to find the sweet spot.

Bye for now.