42mm f/2.8 Tilt Lens on X5S

[Casey53]

I have some old 35RC Olympus Point-and-Shoot film camera I never use. Thought, "How cool would a tilt-shift effect lens be mounted to the X5S camera?" The effect is all over the web if you look for tilt-shift lens effects that make the center sharp to draw ones eye to that while blurring out top and bottom or sides depending on lens mount.

I looked at the Lensbaby for M43 but it is too heavy. I bought some 8 degree tilt M43 adapter to use my old M-42 screw-mount Pentax lenses on the Olympus Pen-F body which works well. The tilt adapter was about $52 on Amazon (Shipped slow-boat from China though.). "If I gut the optics out of the old Olympus 35RC film camera and installed it in the tilt adapter, maybe that would work?"

And so it was born. Weighs in at a light 126 grams with the lens, or about half the LensBaby. Needs a lens filter ring added to make it more front heavy and give me some aperture control as the diaphragm didn't go with the lens assembly. The large black plastic ring holding the lens slips into where the M42 metal ring came out of the adapter.

Work in process....

 

[Casey53]

Done.

Weighs in at 162 grams with the Breakthrough filter attached. I should have cut off maybe 1/4" of the silver (brass) filter ring off the Olympus 35RC I added to extend the front for better balance, and that holds the 43-46 step up ring I glued onto it to hold the ND filter. As it is, I need to add a nickel to the back of the X6S gimbal with Velcro to balance it.

I shot three photos off the Pen-F at the tilt of #1 (Zero degrees), #4 and #8 (Max. tilt.) on the tilt adapter to see the effect on a cell tower about 500 feet away. I used Focus Peaking to set the focus on the lower multiple array of antennas. I prefer the #4 setting as #8 goes too blurry. Maybe #4-#6 would be my range once this gets in the air. I also sewed up a 1" band of black elastic similar to the one that comes with the stock DJI lens to keep out dirt and any vibration of the adapter.