Pentax Q with100 year old lens

After my fairly disappointing results with the 110 lenses I decided to go the whole mile and these are taken with a hundred year old lens liberated from a Vest Pocket Kodak folding camera. From the camera body going outwards there is a Pentax K to Q adapter, a 13mm extension tube, Pentax M42 to K adapter, an M42 Helicoid extension tube (as a focussing mechanism), an M42 body cap with a suitable hole cut in it and finally the Kodak Lens.

I think the lens equates to approximately 70mm and is hellishly difficult to focus, especially in bright light. I dont think I've cracked suitable subject matter yet but I thought some of you might be interested in the results. I'm going to have a go on my DSLR where the focal length might be great for portraits.

It's difficult to use and the image quality is terrible. I think I'm missing the point.

I think the soft dreamy quality is rather charming

I dont think photgraphy needs to be about sharpness at all TBH.

Neither do I TBH. But there are many simple ways of achieving soft dreamy results. A bit of tissue paper, a smear of vaseline, or just a wide open Tak:

Ken - maybe this set-up is most suited to portraiture? The "dreamy" effect is the sort of thing you'd expect to see of a young girl posing, or a bride wearing her veil off of her face (the veil, not the bride! ).

I can see potential in that. Find the right lens, and dreamy flower portraits and/or portraits of people could be very interesting.

I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Dr Orloff on this one. The IQ is really terrible, rather than looking dreamy it all looks out of focus.

I do applaud you Ken for trying out different combinations and experimenting like this, but maybe this one is best consigned to the 'rejected' pile? Sorry if this sounds a bit negative, just being honest with what I see.

Regards
David

I like them too!

It's a lens that's a hundred years old, on a digital camera! Why does there need to be a point to it?

Excellent job getting it to work. I'd quite like to see what that whole setup looks like, too.

I prefer the sort of shot where some parts of the shot are proximally sharp and the rest is a blur, as in Orloff's shot. But I agree with Simon: well worth trying out - how could you resist giving it a go? (The results remind me of those '70s Cokin "special effects" filters).

Ken. before I even scrolled down to the first comment, my initial impression was that they had a dreamy look. So the bottom line is would they pass as good images? Yes.

There is something different to your set set and the image with the TAK. The DOF and overall look of your set can be seen to be "defocussed" across the image rather than isolated.

Worth posting and quite interesting.

Best regards

The background grass and daisies on No. 3 show a lot of
future potential. It's not bokeh that we normally think
of.... more like a Zeiss Softar or an Imagon lens.
Would probably work with a woodland scene or a bridge
with water.

'

Without knowing it was a 100 year old lens: Meh

Knowing the photos were taken using a 100 year old lens: Awesomeness!

Would love to see a photo of the setup!

I'm just happy that Ken has gone to the trouble to set this up then posted the results

It's interesting to be honest - not my taste in image quality but still interesting

Strangely it now makes me wants to dig out my M42 Tokina 135/2.8 as that has a bizarre smooth yet sharp quality about it