Designing Custom Lens Adaptors for Vintage Lenses and Modern Digital Cameras

Vintage Lenses with 3D printed adaptors

    Recently I was commissioned to examine a collection of vintage lenses to see if it was possible to make adaptors to mount them on a FujiFilm X-E2 digital camera. The lenses were quite varied, a pair of 16mm film camera lenses, a microscope lens, and Meyer-Optik 400mm telephoto lens.

Lens adaptor for Meyer-Optik 400mm lens

Meyer-Optik 400mm lens with adaptor attached

   The 16mm lenses were a bit different and required custom adaptor plates to link them directly to the camera's mounting ring, so I set about figuring out the dimensions and best way to print them.

Wide-angle 16mm lens with 3D printed adaptor

     The 16mm lens set consisted of a wide-angle lens and a more general telephoto lens that had a damaged mounting ring, so I designed its mounting plate to include some M3 set-screws to secure it.

16mm telephoto lens with 3D printed adaptor plate and set-screws

     Lastly, the microscope lens was the trickiest since it has no focusing mechanism at all, so it's adaptor plate had to serve that function instead by incorporating a screw thread between the inner and outer sections.

Microscope Lens with focusing adaptor

     After further refining my basic design ideas, I'm now offering some basic sizes for sale on Shapeways: