Lenses

For the last few years, I’ve been making seamless focus gear rings on my 3D printer for myself and my friends. 3D printing was a hobby of mine, as well as collecting and playing with vintage lense. Recently, I expanded into more involved lens work servicing and modifying. Now I'm very happy to offer a wide range of lens services! My background is in Pentax lenses, but I make focus gears, Iris gears, performs de-clicking, and UV treatment for any type of lens.

How to measure your lenses
How to install your focus gears

PENTAX SUPER TAKUMAR – CINE CONVERSION

  • I love old Pentax lenses. They produce amazing images when coupled with newer digital cameras, they’re great to work with, well made, and they have not had the crazy price increase that the Canon FD lenses have had. Super Takumar M42 mount lenses adapt easily to the EF mount with a simple adapter. Pentax SMC K-mount lenses need a little more work to get them onto some cameras but are still well worth the effort. I have a full set of K-mount Pentax lenses that I have cine-converted and I use them all the time.

  • A few small things need to be done to get these lenses ready for cinema. Seemless follow focus gears make a huge difference. If you want to use them with a clip-on matte box you can get step-up rings to give a uniform size and matching custom lens caps. You can also de-click the iris if you want to be able to pull the iris throughout the shot, or remotely change it while on a drone. Pentax made some great lenses. The prices are starting to go up so put together a set while you can.

CUSTOME SEAMLESS 3D PRINTED FOLLOW FOCUS GEARS

  • If you can’t get your lenses to me, I’m happy to make some gears and mail them to you along with instructions for installation. They can be a little bit tricky to put on, but it’s not too bad. Most rings need a little filing before they can slide on for the perfect fit. If they are too loose or if they move when your follow focus gets to the end, you can put tape underneath the rings.

DE-CLICKING

De-clicking the iris is very simple and reversible. Firstly I remove the ball bearing which is underneath the iris ring. Then, I put a lens-specific silicone grease underneath the ring to give it some resistance when moving. Without the grease, the ring will move too freely. As long as you don’t lose the ball bearings, they can be put back in place, making the lens click again.

  • Here is the ball bearing that will be removed.

  • Here you can see the inside of the iris ring where the ball bearing snaps into position.

  • Removed ball bearings

RUSTY IRIS BLADES

This is something interesting I came across recently. This old Takumar 135mm had a rusty iris. It still moves well enough but the rust is coming off the blades and floating around inside the lens. It must have been rather wet at some point. I got it cleaned up and back together but it still looks a bit rough. In the future, id recommend finding another lens that is damaged to buy as a parts lens and transplant the blades from that.

  • This is what the rust looks like when looking in the front of the lens.

  • Here are the rusty blades out of the lens

  • Rust has been cleaned up and the lens is going back together. They don’t look very good but at least this old lens still has a little more life left in it.