astroturtle.com - Page 6 - it’s turtles all the way down…

Adapting a Yashica GSN 45mm f/1.7 lens for the Sony E Mount

Ages ago, I bought a broken Yashica GSN as a parts camera to repair the rangefinder mechanism on my keeper GSN. (You can read about that surgery here.)

When I cannibalized the parts camera, I took the lens off (probably the only part of that camera which was in decent shape) hoping to one day adapt it for use on a Leica M body or something similar. Well, the lens wound up, like a lot of my projects, kicking around in a drawer for years and just gathering dust. Then the NEX series of cameras came along and with them adapters for every lens imaginable. Slooowly, eventually, the dim flashbulb in my head went off, I remembered the long forgotten GSN lens and I got to wondering if and how I could pair it with my NEX 5n.

2014-04-2111

Astronomy Telescope Mods & Repair

Nexstar SE Wedge

The final part of my Nexstar project was getting it on a wedge which would make auto-guided long exposure shots possible. Unfortunately, the Nexstar wedge has long since been discontinued and even if it hadn’t — $160 for a weenie little wedge for this scope was a bit much for me. So I decided to buy a cheap used wedge from an older Celestron system and make whatever modifications were needed to get it to work with the Nexstar.

What I didn’t expect was how little modification was needed to get an old 1980s era Celestron C8 wedge to work with the Nexstar SE. All the holes, both on the tripod and drive base lined up perfectly and the only modification I really had to make to the wedge was to hammer out the center guide peg.

2012-08-069

Astronomy Telescope Mods & Repair

Nexstar SE Camera Platform

I recently picked up a used Nexstar 6/8 SE mount and tripod. The idea is using it not only as a grab-and-go for my 72mm f/6 Orion EON, (and hopefully a 5 or 6″ SCT OTA down the line), but also in the hopes of using it for some lightweight wide-field long-exposure and time-lapse astrophotography.

I wanted to side-by-side mount a DSLR camera and wide-angle lens combo alongside my unused Celestron 9×50 finder scope from my CPC800 and use an Orion StarShoot autoguider attached to the finder to guide the whole contraption for long exposure photos. That this setup can run on batteries, and is lightweight enough to chuck in the back of the car for camping trips, made this an interesting camera platform despite the Nexstar’s well known astrophotography limitations.

2012-07-2910

Camera & Lens Repair Photography

Rollei 35 TE Repairs

I bought a Rollei 35 TE recently that had a couple of issues, and it was driving me bonkers that I could find very little information online about this great camera. Everything I could find, including the service manual, was for the previous generation 35, S and T series cameras.

The issues with my TE were in the meter and lens barrel. The lens barrel was loose and when retracted the lens kept flopping out. (This is a common ailment with all Rollei 35 cameras.) The other problem was that the meter would not auto-off after 10 seconds as stated in the manual. It was always on as long as there was a battery in the chamber.

Metering was spot on and agreed perfectly with my Gossen Lunasix3 and the camera still took a great picture despite these issues, but they were quickly becoming a major annoyance. Since all the repair estimates I got were for much more than what the camera cost me (and often more than what I could realistically sell it on eBay for) and did not guarantee the meter could be repaired or replaced (in fact most were convinced it could not). I decided to try to fix it myself and document the process for others that might be facing the same issues.

2011-04-2411

Film Development Photography

Rollei / Compard Digibase C-41 Processing Kit

I just received this great C-41 process developing kit (I got the 20 roll kit) from freestylephoto.biz, and I’m diving head-first in to processing my own color film for the first time.

The process seems only a bit little more complicated than black and white and the Rollei / Digibase chemicals have the advantage of being usable at an easy to maintain 25°C.

I put this page together as a cheat-sheet for myself and most of the information here can be found in the Rollei / Compard Digibase C-41 Processing Kit Instruction Guide [PDF]

2011-04-02No Comments