Happy with the
Canon lenses I have, I turned my attention to the possibility that I
might be able to use my Hasselblad lens on the Canon. This led me
to consult a machinist that specializes in things photographic. I
found that they would charge a hefty premium to produce a mount that
would provide tilt-shift and mounting of a Hasselblad lens. But
they referred me to a manufacturer that already made a panoramic shift
adapter. Zörk makes a number of different adapters and
indeed offers one to do what I wanted. The bad news was their
price for all the trimmings was about the same as for my machinist - way
too much. For the price they're asking, I might as well buy the
Canon 90mm Tilt-Shift lens. But the device intrigued me so I saved
the information and decided not to do anything.
I sold some used
Jeep parts and came up with a couple hundred dollars. I thought to
look at eBay and much to my great surprise and delight, there was a Zörk
Panorama Shift Adapter! It was used and selling for a small
fraction of what a new one cost. It was almost too good to be
true. But there it was. Now there were two things that
complicated an otherwise simple decision. First, the camera side
of the mounting was for Nikon... That was fairly easy. I
purchased a Fotodiox Pro Nikon-to-Canon EOS adapter. I chose the
Pro version at greater expense because the reviews consistently reported
that the "bargain" version had issues keeping the lens tight and locked.
Here's my write-up about the
adapter.
The second issue
was really driven by my own issues with trust. The seller is in
Poland and I am leery of non-US sellers. I dug into the sellers
eBay feedback and could not come up with any clear seller-sided
problems. With over 5000 positive feedback reports and just a
handful of disgruntled buyers (all whiners by my best estimation), I
decided it was "found money" and I'd "roll the dice". So I took
the Buy It Now! option and PayPal'd the money to the seller.
Nearly a month
later, the adapter arrived at my local post office where it spent a few
minutes lost in the wrong pile. When I finally got it home I found
that both the Hasselblad lens and Fotodiox adapter fit perfectly and
soon the adapter was on my camera. Schweet! Then I ran into
a problem. The adapter appeared to be fixed in the vertical
position allowing only a 20mm shift up. This is OK but quite
limiting. I could not find a release or other evidence that the
adapter rotates. I contemplated that the three set screws at the
back might need to be backed out to allow the rotation but a gently try
at this yielded no results. Rather than "force it", I wrote to the
USA Distributor and got a very rapid response. In a nutshell the
adapter rotates requiring more force than one might expect. Sure
enough, a little "gentle" force got the adapter rotating and I could
feel the detent every 15 degrees. Excellent!
I made a couple
pictures and merged them in PhotoShop with very good results. The
file size is huge and the resulting detail of the image is terrific.
One other
complication - in order to use this properly, the adapter bracket is
mounted to the tripod. For vertical use, this is simple - the
tripod mount just threads into the tripod and off you go. Things
get complicated when the adapter is rotated 90-degrees. The
manufacturer sells an "L" bracket to solve this and charges $100 for the
part. No matter how much I spent on the camera and lenses, there
are some things that just seem too expensive. I have a hard time
understanding why a sturdy metal "L" bracket with a 1/4-20 thread sells
for $100. On that note, they sell two versions of the adapter and
charge a $100 premium for the version that has the corresponding 1/4-20
threaded hole in the base! I got lucky with my adapter - it had
the threaded hole. All I needed to do was come up with an "L"
bracket... I went into my box of old gear and came out with a
tripod head that serves the same purpose and saved myself the trouble of
either buying or making the bracket. Of course this results in
making the whole contraption looking a bit like a Rube Goldberg machine,
but it it makes great pictures...
I am looking
forward to making some meaningful images with this lens/adapter combo!
