During the WW2 the US military used the [shoplink 38927 ebay]Kodak Aero Ektar 178mm f/2.5[/shoplink] on bombers to photograph German military and industrial facilities. PolygonSandwich blog owner (Click here) made the impossible possible and uses this lens to take pictures with the Panasonic GH2! That is definitely the biggest lens ever used for a digital mirrorless camera. You cna see image samples on his blog. There is also a how to guide if you want to do something like this too.
The lens itself costs around $600 used on [shoplink 38927 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
14 Responses
> That is definitely the biggest lens ever used for a digital mirrorless camera.
Surely, it’s not bigger than the Leica Apo-Telyt-R 280/2.8? Or more ridiculous than the Apo-Telyt on an E-PM1?
Surely, someone has tried a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 800/5.6 on a GF3?
I’ve sold the Telyt, and I don’t have any photos to post to demonstrate that it is a bigger *usable* lens. It was barely usable for me on an SLR. 🙂
And the Aero Ektar is radioactive as hell 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8a-_MeTUsQ
don’t lick it then 😉 2x background almost touching isn’t a serious concern, just don’t fall asleep with it pressed to your eye …
Might be better to also not to smell it too much.
While outer layer of skin stops alpha radiation Thorium’s one decay product is Radon and as gas it gets easily into lungs where tissues are lot less protected.
The GH2 is simply taking a picture of the projection of the lens on a ground glass.
Yes, not that it’s bad or wrong, but he didn’t really mount it onto the camera. The effect is quite cool, but mounting it would surely produce higher IQ.
very cool, he was able to maintain the original FOV/DOF this way.
I’m sure some Qatari prince has use his Carl Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 1700/4 with a Hasselblad Lunar.
He has to bear with ordering a Lunar just to prove you wrong.
Any chance he’d make a m43 mount and slap that puppy on the camera and see how it renders?
you would loose alot,just more magnification because of the cropping. I like his (admittedly non-elegant)solution for adapting, since he stays close to the original rendering of the lens.
This lens covers 4×5 and there is an approx. crop of 3.44 between 4×5 and 35mm. A 178mm 4×5 lens would work out to about ~612mm field of view on 35mm. So basically if this was mounted directly on a m43 camera (additional 2x crop factor) you would end up with a very hazy 1224mm f2.5 (light gathering) radioactive lens that weighs 3+ lbs with a DOP equivalent north of f16.
Ha. Life turns full circle. Rumor site uses old story from camera site. 🙂
Nothing new – this video was done a couple of years ago with the same technique – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2pfSVe1XDA