Creating Adapters

It is possible to purchase adapters for most lenses at a low price, but some less popular adapters can prove very expensive or not be available. Creating your own adapters is not a difficult task once you find the flange length of the lens and the adapter.

Finding the mounting plate for the lens is not a difficult task, either old cameras can be dissembled or I often use macro extension tubes and either unscrew the plate and remount it or glue it inside of a lens adapter that will fit either a mount or helicoid.

It is also possible to modify some bayonet mounts or adapters. I prefer to mount lenses on a helicoid even when the lens has one inside as this gives me a closer focal distance and ensures that I can focus to infinity. Mounting to a common helicoid also ensures that I can use the lens across my many camera bodies all of which have a different flange distance.

Withe this in mind I often mount a camera female bayonet mount onto a common thread size as shown below which is a 42mm adaption to an Axa bayonet. This can then be screwed onto any 42mm helicoid and finding an adapter from 42mm to any camera is easy and cheap to buy. It also makes mounting different lenses on the camera and between cameras out in the field much easier as they are all a common mount.

With projector lenses I do the same thing. I glue them onto a common thread size. The lenses below are all on a 42mm threaded ring so they fit on a common helicoid.