For the love of... broken lenses of course!

A couple years ago there was a fire at the Karpeles Manuscript Library here in St. Louis. The building housing the Library/Museum is a historic church building and the contents were priceless. Fortunately most of the contents of the building were saved and the building is soon to be restored thanks to its steel frame. 

Taken with the 28mm

I wanted to get some images of it before they began the restoration process, slated to start soon. Naturally a broken building demanded being photographed with broken gear right?

I had rescued a couple Minolta film camera lenses that were crying out my name. One, the 28mm has fungus in it which is, in old lens terms - totaled. The 58mm lens has oil in the aperture blades rendering the lens non-functional for normal operation. 

For this project, I mounted the lenses to my Canon EOS R. Adapting old film camera lenses to DSLRs can get tricky but it due to the design of mirrorless bodies, the adaptation is much easier. And that adds to the fun and intrigue of doing so.

28mm lenses are generally a dime a dozen but I'd decided that, despite the fungus, I was going to give this lens a shot. These Rokkor lenses and typically pretty good lenses so even though the fungus would have some affect on the image I shot a few images with it. Fungus usually lowers the sharpness and contrast of any lens that it attacks but I am pleased with the results. The image below as well as the lead image are shot with a "trash" lens. Ironically, there is actually something I find attractive about the tonality this lens imparts on the images. I can't quite define it but I like it.  


The 58 took a little more work to shoot with. Due to the oil on the aperture blades, it was stuck in its fully open position. This is an f1.4 lens so that large aperture is likely great for portraits. I will need to try that out soon. But for most work, I want the lens stopped down somewhat. That was a problem because the oil on the blades keeps them from moving properly. Aperture blades slide against each other so any friction is enough to keep the light springs that move them from doing their jobs. Below you can see that oil on the blades. This is a rather common issue on older lenses as the lubricants used for focus helicoids break down and leach into other areas.



The correct repair for these lenses is to fully disassemble them, remove the aperture blades, clean them and reassemble. 

I like to tinker but I know my limits. I don't have the patience and dexterity to deal with this level of lens repair. So, on this lens, I just found a work around. 


By removing the back of the lens, I was able to remove a few parts that would normally create the mechanical interface between the body and lens. Since it wasn't working anyway, this seemed to be the best work around for this particular lens. 

Doing so left me with a small opening in the back of the lens through which I can access the pin that physically moves the aperture blade. The movement is too sticky for the lightweight springs to accomplish but moving this lever gets the job done. Of course, what f-stop I'm setting the lens to is anyone's guess but hey, that's part of the fun here. This is about non-functional gear after all! 

A small screwdriver can now move the exposed aperture control lever manually.

So here are some images shot with the 58 at some unknown aperture. I just know it was midrange somewhere and that's what I desired. I am pleased with these results as well.





I have three weddings to photograph before the end of the month. Will I be using these lenses for those weddings? Of course not. Dismounting a lens to insert a small screwdriver into it to affect the aperture to an unknown setting isn't quite practical for that type of work. 

My goal is not to encourage you to attempt anything of the sort. However, I do hope images taken with gear damaged to this level helps someone realize that just about every piece of kit serves a purpose. We simply do not always need that very expensive piece of gear to accomplish our goal.

Happy shooting!




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