Surely someone in the camera-manufacturing world must realize that an adapter can be made to put Leica screw or M mount lenses onto a Hasselblad XPAN body. As far as I can see by examining the 45/4 lens and the XPAN body, there are no electrical contacts....just a mechanical coupling.

I don't mean lenses to to be used in the panoramic format, just the standard 35mm format. I realize that there are no framing lines in the finder, but an accessory finder would work.

Is there any reason that this can't be done?

-- Jim Tardio (jimtardio@earthlink.net), August 27, 2001

Answers

The reason for the slow aperture of standard Xpan lenses is the design limitation of 6x7 coverage. I doubt very much Leitz lenses were designed to cover beyong the 135 image circle, thus useing Leitz lenses on the Xpan would be pointless. I have used the Xpan for only a short while but I can testify the standard 45mm Fuji lens is best standard lens I have ever used and I have all the M Leicas.

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), August 27, 2001.

I don't see why you couldn't do that. Would it be worth the effort? Yes the Blad lenses are crisp but they feel very light weight and i feel there long term image quality might suffer.I have had this problem with zooms where they ere sharp when new but go soft after use. What i would like is an M6 body that has about an extra 5 to 10 mm added in the image width. The problem for me with the x-pan is lens speed and the 35mm lens. If the made another body with internal frames for the 35 and 90 then made the lenses f2 or maybe 2.8 then it would be my perfect travel camera.I find the body easy to use and the frame size switch is easy. The only other thing i would like them to do is show the shutter speed in the finder when using A prioroty.

-- Tim (timphoto@ihug.com.au), August 27, 2001.

Ray is correct. The lenses for the X-Pan are Fuji medium format lenses (though I'm not sure if this holds true for the 30mm) designed to cover a 645 neg. The Leica lenses would not have an image circle large enough to use on the panoramic setting, which of course is why many people use the X-Pan.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), August 27, 2001.

useing Leitz lenses on the Xpan would be pointless.

Not at all. If they had a fast optic (45mm/50mm or 35mm) I would probably get one because then you could shoot some available light 35mm frame-only shots. Sure you couldn't use it for panoramics, but it would mean that you really did have a camera that could shoot 35mm frames (almost) as well as a Leica and panoramics when wanted. At the moment one is limited to f4. I think it would be a great idea to have a conversion mount. You would use the Leica/VL etc. optic only when you wanted wider than f4 and were shooting regular 35mm frames.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), August 27, 2001.

Let's forget about the Hasselblad lenses for the XPAN, and the fact that the XPAN is capable of panoramic images.

Let's concentrate on the other fact that the XPAN also takes standard 35mm (non-panoramic) images....like the Hexar RF. All I'm wondering about is if there is any reason why an adapter can't be made to put Leica, or Voigtlander, screw or M mount lenses onto an XPAN body...say like a Leica 35/2 asph. Seperate veiwfinders would be necessary, but the camera would be much more versatile if the option to use M mount lenses was available.

The point of this is NOT to take panoramic images, but to use the XPAN like an M6 or a Hexar RF, with the added bonus of having the pano feature available by using the Hasselblad lenses.

-- Jim Tardio (jimtardio@earthlink.net), August 27, 2001.

Jim

I'm with you. In fact if you could convert a 40mm Rokkor or Summicron-C or a 50mm Summicron or 'lux, you could use the existing 45mm frames in the viewfinder as a pretty good approximation. That would be great! I see not reason why it could not be done in principle.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), August 27, 2001.

Tempting idea - but what about rangefinder coupling?

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), August 27, 2001.

Lutz

Yes, quite, THAT is the problem - it is probably very difficult. In my opinion Fuji/Hasselblad really should produce a lens designed just for this purpose.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), August 27, 2001.

What it really boils down to is whether the lens flange-to film plane distance can be preserved once the adapter is in place. The Leica M is a pretty thin camera, only a little more than one inch in overall depth. In order to preserve the infinity focus flange distance for Leica lenses, the XPAN would either have to be thinner than that by a millimeter or so, or else the lens mounting throat would have to be large enough for the adapter to fit inside the opening, rather than over it. If either condition is true, then it's only a matter of having someone machine an adapter.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), August 27, 2001.

Bob, you are absolutely right. The lens flange-to film plane distances of an Xpan and a Leica-M are different. A Leica’s one is 27.8mm while an Xpan’s is about 30mm or more (I didn’t measured it accurately). So, a Leica lens would work as a macro lens on an Xpan.

-- Victor Randin (ved@enran.com.ua), August 28, 2001.