Fitting 19/2.8 (Solms) on full frame Canon

Hi, Jan, there's a guy on Rob Galbraith's forum whose name is Arne Hvaring, he just modified a Elmarit 19 to fit his 1Ds2 ... you may want to talk to him.

Thanks for the pointer Simon! It seems like 1.5mm or so tapered over the top 1/3 will be sufficient. About 1/3 is where the EOS3 bumps it as well. If you've seen the lens you'll realize it's not a difficult mod to make, the main problem I see is making sure no filings go in the lens. Running a vacuum cleaner sounds like it might work.

OK, did it! Wooohooo!!! I carefully masked it off with some black gaffer tape (chose black so I could see the filings), put a file in a small vise (third-hand type), turned on the vacuum, and then carefully filed down the top 1/3 to where I could just make out a slight angle. With a steel ruler I could see about 1mm of light at the top end. Cleaned it, took off the tape, carefully cleaned again, then put it on the EOS3 to give it a try. Off it rattled half a dozen frames -- without any problems whatsoever!!!

Hello Jan. Sounds interesting. Could you post a picture, please?

I'll post one tomorrow. The problem is so little is removed it's really difficult to tell, and even more difficult to show. But I'll give it a try!

Great, another mad projecteer! To check for clearance you could try sticking layers of tape on the back until it jams the mirror when focussed on infinity, at least you would know.

Huw, that's a possibility... or I could just let things alone and stop whacking the mirror against it! :) See what you've done Huw, people hacking their perfectly fine, ridiculously expensive (!!!) gear. *g*

Here's a few photos. Nothing exciting... The first one is the vise setup (pretty simple), file is your ordinary garage item. Once I've gotten a 1Ds I will go over it with a finer file and create a smooth beveled top. But no point doing so if I find I need to take off a little more. Instead I deburred and cleaned it and left it at that for now.

This shows just the vise, file, gaffer tape, lens, and steel ruler.


Here's the portion that was touched. I just held the lens and ran it over the file. First just a few times to get a sense of whether the filings really wanted to find their way into the lens. Very little wanted to stay with the lens though. The gaffer kept the lens clean. The lens was racked out to minimum distance to protect the rear element. (Do this before masking. Don't ask how I found out.)


Below is an attempt to show the angle. To check my progress I'd lay the ruler on top of it and visually inspect the light gap.

So, that's it. Doesn't get much simpler -- just spend the time to mask it properly, this is actually the critical part. And go slow and careful, pencil in tick marks for the area you want to file down. I was extremely careful, and it still less than an hour, including setup, thinking things through, saying a prayer, and swallowing hard several times.

You're a brave man, Jan. ;-)

BTW, with a nice set of R lenses collecting dust in my drawers I was wondering whether getting a digital Canon body plus adapter was a good reason to keep them. What would you suggest? Is the quality worth the painful stepping down for each shot - or am I missing something? Is there an adapter that would allow for focussing/shooting/measuring at full aperture?

Thank you Jan, that helps. Owning a 1Ds and some Leica Lenses, I'll give it a try. Cheers.