I did a little testing with a 400mm f/2.8 Nikkor the other night by removing the back lens barrel that just contains the aperture mechanism and air.

I then used some gafers tape to attatch the #3 and #2 extension tubes to the back of the lens and hooked up my Pentax 67II camera to the lens. This gives approximately the correct film to lens distance. (P67II film plane to lens mount distance =85mm, Nikon = 46.5mm)

Amazingly this lens easily covers the 6x7 format! I did this because I read somewhere on the net that supertelephotoBs tend to have quite a large image circles. OK I probably wonBt spend the time to make a custom P67II mount for the Nikon lens just because the whole contraption would be so huge! But itBs food for thought.

Similar results may be possible with the 500mm f/4, 500mm f/4, 400mm f/3.5 and 300mm f/2.8. Focal lengths shorter than 300mm for 35mm cameras tend not to have enough blank space between the back lens element to the film plane.

Peace, Rolland

-- rolland elliott (relliott@nasheng.com), November 09, 2000

Answers

I have done some experimenting as well with different lenses on the 67. It is not very difficult to find a lens with an image circle of about 9 cm (needed for 6x7 cm). IB4ve tried a lens from a copier, an old projection lens, enlarger lenses and telelenses for 35mm. It is however not so easy to find a lens with a reasonable image quality, specially at the edges of the 6x7 negative. 35 mm lenses are corrected for a negative size 1/4 of the 6x7 size, and show a rapid loss of quality outside the image circle for 35mm. It would be possible, but quite exceptional if the Nikon gives good quality all over the 67 negative. It is a bit of a contradiction to use a medium format camera with a lens that doesnB4t give the quality this camera (format) is capable of. It is however very rewarding to trie and discover it is possible in the first place. My experiment with a medium format enlarger lens with tilt/shift was!

-- Peter Gooijer (rockrose@freeler.nl), November 09, 2000.

This is another alternative for long lenses for the P67:

I've just finished converting a 500/5.6 Pentacar to Rollei SL66. It involved machining 6 mm off the barrel of the lens and making a stainless steel lens mount bayonet to fit. I expect to develop some negs tonite to see what sort of quality I'm getting.

Anyway, the reason why I bring it up is that this lens was made by Zeiss in Jena before the reunification. My unit is well made, Multicoated and is in very good shape. At C$400 it will allow me to do some tele work with the Rollei. The lens was initially designed for a 6x6 Exacta and had a detachable bayonet mount for that. It was also used on 35 mm cameras and came with a lens cone to extend and fit to Nikon F. One chap said he had found an adapter for the P67 and that it worked well - the lens did not have to be modified.

Cheers,

-- Duane K (dkucheran@creo.com), December 11, 2000.

Roland: I recently acquired a Leitz 400 f:6.8 Telyt lens. Along with this lens was a custom rear tube to mount it onto a Pentax 6x7. I have not shot anything with it on the 6x7, but visually it falls off on the edges when mounted on the 6x7. The 400 Telyt will mount on the 6x7 with the Leitz shoulder stock. An interesting concept.

Mark J.

-- Mark A. Johnson (logic@gci.net), April 14, 2001.