FUJI X-PRO1 BODY + OLD RANGEFINDER LENS | FREELENSING WITH FUJI X-PRO1

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FREELENSING WITH FUJI X-PRO1 by PAULIUS MUSTEIKIS

Last Friday I picked up my non functional Olympus RC 35 that was hiding in the deep closet. I picked up this fine little 35mm rangefinder, gently took it apart and dismounted 42mm f/2.8 Olympus Zuiko lens. Afterwards I took the lens apart and took the shutter and aperture blades out. So in the end all I had left was a little peace of beautiful and non working vintage glass.

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Size comparison: CF card next to 42mm f/2.8 Olympus Zuiko lens

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Ready for the action: 42mm f/2.8 Olympus Zuiko lens and Fuji X-Pro1

So first of all I tried modified Olympus 42mm f/2.8 Zuiko lens on my work full frame DSLR. And it didn’t work. And I would assume it didn’t work because of large gap between handheld lens and the camera sensor. So then I picked up my Fuji X-Pro1. And that was it! I peaked through viewfinder and saw world turning into an awesome abyss of blur. And I was sold.
It was Mother’s Day weekend. My wife and I put together my killa crew of  4+ a dog, I grabbed my equipment and we headed out to wonder the Marquette neighborhood.
And that was first time freelensing with Fuji X-Pro1. Heck it was first time freelensing ever! I’ve never used this technique before and I am complete newbie in this type of photography. I’ve read about it and few other creative photography techniques in a few articles by Sam Hurd.
And even though I’ve never done it before, and even though I did not have any serious intentions trying it out, freelensing with Fuji X-Pro1 was very much an interesting experience and I am totally hooked!
I guess that unpredictability and uncertainty of the outcome is what fascinates me most.
Stay tuned for more freelensing with Fuji X-Pro1 adventures!

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14 Comments

  1. Absolutely gorgeous work. Inspiring!

    • Thanks Ben! It was truly magical moment- great crew, warm weather, good back light from the Sunset. I was fortunate to be there with my experimental equipment! (:

  2. Paulius,

    A couple of months ago I found the Olympus lens called the body cap lens. It is a 15mm lens built into a lenscap. I liked the idea, so I purchased one and modified it to fix my Fuji X-E1. The process goes something like this;

    1. Obtain an Olumpus MFT lens.
    2. Buy a Fuji X-mount body cap.
    3. Dig out the Dremel (a high speed hand grinder)
    4. Cut a hold in the body cap just big enough to hold the cylindrical part of the Olympus lens, but not the lens flanges.
    5. Grind off the Olympus lens flanges.
    7. Play with the lens sensor spacing of the Olympus lens in the Fuji body cap until you achieve infinity focus.
    8. Use a hot glue gun to hold and connect the lens in the body cap.
    9. Go take pictures.

    The optical quality of the Olympus body cap lens isn’t very good, so I didn’t end up using it much, but it was a fun experiment.

    Of course the downside is you have to (partially) destroy your Olumpus lens to get it to fit on a Fuji X-mount.

    I enjoyed the pics,

    Tom

    • Tom,
      thanks for sharing! Just Google’d it as I never heard of it before. Small, looks cool, gets the job done and is priced well! Can’t wish for more! (:
      Below is the link where I found few while ago regarding adding lenses to bodies with different mounts for creating tilt-shift look:
      http://cow.mooh.org/projects/tiltshift/diyexamples.html
      I liked my method due to the shallow depth of field, vignetting in the edges and the fact that you can get unpredictable results.
      Cheers!

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