90° Rotary Lens Bracket Tripod Adapter

STARTING SITUATION

Whenever you are shooting with a digital (mirrorless) Medium Format Camera, regardless of the System you are using, you will - sooner or later - start trying to adapt Lenses from other Brands. Maybe because the number of original Lenses available is very limited or very expensive. Or even both.

Now, you can either adopt classic 35mm Lenses but, due to the reasonably larger Sensor being used in your Medium Format Camera, you will very often experience that the Image Circle of an actual 35mm Lens does not fully cover the whole Sensor of your Camera and which will result into some pretty serious Vignetting. Some soft Vignetting can be resolved in Post-Processing of the Images, but hard Vignetting can only be resolved by Cropping the Image in Post (which will, depending on the Aspect-Ratio of your Crop, result in Loss of Pixels…).

Having that said, there is an Option of Glass out there where you do not need to worry about the Size of the Image Circle: by adapting Lenses originally made for Medium Format Film Cameras such as the Contax 645, the Hasselblad H-and V-Mount, Mamiya 645, Mamiya RB67, Pentax 6x7 and more. And with a proper Adapter a lot of those Lenses can be adapted to actual, digital, mirrorless Medium Format Cameras.

PROBLEM #1

WEIGHT & TORQUE

These Lenses for Medium Format Film Cameras are heavy! Most of them manufactured Decades ago, are built like a Tank and use a lot of large & heavy Glass inside! Together with a proper Adapter, such a Lens/Adapter Combo can easily sum up to 1.600 gramms (or more). If you are now adding another 1.400 gramms for your DSLM Body, the overall weight of a Camera incl. adapted Lens can easily sum up to 3.000 gramms and more!*

Now holding this Weight in your Hands is one Thing. It might become uncomfortable at a certain Point, but you can lay it down for Rest if necessary. But what about those SItuations where you need to mount your Gear on a Tripod? Do you really want to mount this heavy Combo on a Tripod by using the Standard 1/4” Thread Connection on the Bottom of your Camera?! And even orientate the Camera below the Horizon?!

The Force (or better: Torque) this Weight will apply to the Mounting Plate of your DSLM Body is so massive that I decided to not trust it! And if you keep in Mind that most actual Production Tele & Zoom Lenses above 200m are Factory-set with a proper Tripod Mounting Shell, my assumptions are quite right…

*The Combination of Fujifilm GFX 50S plus EVF Tilt Adapter plus EVF plus Battery Grip plus 2 x Batteries plus Godox Flash Transmitter (incl. Batteries) plus Kipon P67-GFX Adapter plus ASAHI Pentax SMC 50mm/f3.5 Lens weighs an incredible 3.053 gramms!

PROBLEM #2

CAMERA ORIENTATION

Another major Issue is the Circumstance that it is not possible to change the Camera Orientation on your Tripod - from Portrait-Mode to Landscape-Mode and vice versa - without Losing the original Composition! That’s usually caused by the the Fact that the Rotation Axis of your System (which normally goes through the Center of your Tripod’s Ballhead) is not congruent to the optical Axis of your System (which is the middle Axis of your Lens) and which leads to the Transformation of the optical Axis!**

So whenever you made your Composition in one Camera-Orientation and you decide - for whatever Reason - to change the Orientation of your Camera, you very likely have to re-Compose your image. And the closer you are to your Subject, the more likely is the Need for such re-Composing…

Now to avoid the Need for re-Composing the Image, the Rotation-Axis and the optical Axis of your Lens must be congruent.

**Once you rotated the Camera on the Tripod by 90° around its Ballhead - like shown in this Sketch - you need to re-compose the image by moving the whole Tripod to the Right and by raising the Center Column of your Tripod…!

**Once you rotated the Camera on the Tripod by 90° around its Ballhead - like shown in this Sketch - you need to re-compose the image by moving the whole Tripod to the Right and by raising the Center Column of your Tripod…!

SOLUTION

Now before going any further into more description of the Rotary Lens Bracket P67/GFX, let me show you its Functionality in Operation:

VIDEO OF OPERATION

IMAGES OF THE CREATION PROCESS

1. 3D CAD Design using SolidWorks

1. 3D CAD Design using SolidWorks

2. First 3D Rendering using SolidWorks Visualize (1)

2. First 3D Rendering using SolidWorks Visualize (1)

2. First 3D Rendering using SolidWorks Visualize (2)

2. First 3D Rendering using SolidWorks Visualize (2)

3. Prototype (Front View)

3. Prototype (Front View)

3. Prototype (Rear View #1)

3. Prototype (Rear View #1)

3. Prototype (Rear View #2)

3. Prototype (Rear View #2)

3. Prototype (Rear View with mounted Adapter)

3. Prototype (Rear View with mounted Adapter)

3. Prototype with mounted Adapter & Camera

3. Prototype with mounted Adapter & Camera

3. Prototype complete

3. Prototype complete