Canon 10D

 

The AL-4 achromatic lens as an imaging device.

AL-4 is an achromatic lens with an optical power of 4 diopters. It consists of two lenses of different glass types glued together. Reduces chromatic aberrations in the frame. According to the factory manual, it is used for macro photography of small objects, reproductions of paintings and similar works. According to the passport the shooting scale is 1:4.27-1:2.55. The connecting thread is m52. To work, the lens must be screwed onto a lens with a 52mm filter thread. I think it is possible to use lenses with other front threads, but then you need to use step-up or step-down rings..

My lens is made in Ukraine at the Tochprilad factory in Kharkiv.

 I think I had this lens in my box for about 10 years. I remembered its existence but didn't see the point of using it in any way. Recently, however, I decided to make my own mind up about this product and took some test shots with it..

The Jupiter 37 lens was chosen as the main lens. Jupiter has a filter thread of just 52mm and a focal length of 135mm, which seemed appropriate for a trial macro shoot..  

Shooting was done with a Sony A7 camera. Small lighting illuminators were used. Focusing mainly on the screen.

As a model was chosen this toy with a height of 10.5 cm -

Ended up with a few shots that I personally think are quite pretty.

Here they are - (as far as I remember, I set the aperture to 1/5.6)

Basically, I decided that this was good enough for the first encounter. It is admittedly a good product, capable of performing simple tasks. But for frequent use it is a bit clumsy and certainly a compromise and a very budget and not very high quality macro tool.

However, it was decided to continue the experiment with this lens. The thing is, the AL-4 macro lens is not only capable of macro photography, but it can also be used as a telephoto lens. The idea is not mine, I found it on the internet some time ago. But without any concrete examples. In this case, we don't need another lens, but we do need a lot of other equipment.

We need to assemble the following design -

So, in this photo. -

1.Camera. Well, obviously. Without a camera, you can't get an image at all in any way. Out of many options, I chose a mirrorless camera with a full frame sensor. Pinholes and SLRs were rejected as less convenient.

2. An adapter that can be used to connect the camera and item 3

3. Rail macro attachment, I have an old Soviet junk called PZF. I have it with an m42 thread, just right for the next point - point 4. (I should add here that instead of the PZF you can use a whole bunch of macro rings, but it is very inconvenient and I think very trashy).

4. An important detail of this design is that you need a lens body without lenses, with external threads for 52mm filters. It is very good if this body retains the aperture. Sadly, mine has none. I found a Helios body with no glass (and no aperture), but with a working helicoid and the possibility to focusing (which is not really important, because you can also focusing with the macro attachment).

5. Well, here, basically, is the AL-4 lens itself. We simply screw it into item 4.

6. I also decided to use such a thing - an external aperture. Mine has a connection thread of 52 mm, so I screwed it into the AL-4 lens itself. In addition, the body of this diaphragm is relatively large and itself acts as a small lens hood.  Essentially, item 6 is not necessary. But some kind of hood I recommend in any case.

So, I put it all together, and what I got was this -

You could say it's a telephoto lens with a focal length of around 250mm.

Well, you can do a test shot like this. Preferably on a tripod, of course. But at some point I decided to give up the tripod. It's not very comfortable to run around the city with a tripod when all of a sudden those fucking ruzzians start shooting their fucking rockets or iranian shaheds.

It was decided to shoot the test shots handheld.

Here are the results -

If you see several identical shots, they are not the same. In the first one, the aperture is fully open, in the second one, the aperture is closed.

Follow this link to see more footage -

https://photos.app.goo.gl/uw5uwJ87XcgAKHKfA

As it turned out, the whole construction is quite usable even without a tripod, and I had no great difficulty in getting the focus right, even in the chilly weather.

As for the result, I enjoyed playing around with all this junk and the result is quite interesting.

Thank you for your attention.