JA, you know the stuff they sell to vent dryers and air conditioners that looks like the elbow part of a bendy straw? I'm pretty sure they make a smaller-gauge version of that. Not sure if I've seen it in hardware stores, or in auto supply stores, but that might work as a bellows, while offering a bit more flexibility (albeit still with some kludging involved). The white version might be too "leaky" light-wise, but I've also seen it in a slightly heavier black plastic that might suit your purposes.

Yeah, I thought about that too, hearty, although I don't think I'd use shift much. With this one, the bellows are too stiff for shift. I'll have to use less foil next time. ;-)

you have more degrees of freedom too :-)

jonnyapple said:
I've got it on the list.

After sleeping on the decision, I'd rather have a new flash and keep my $5 solution for the few times I'll actually use this.

JA You inspiered me, need to play with my nex today:)

Wow, thanks for the link, jjr. I may have to get that for Christmas. You don't happen to know whether it controls the aperture on G Nikkor lenses, do you? It shows photos of it with them but I can't see the control on any of the pictures. If it doesn't, I'll just stick with my own creation.

edit: found something on dpreview that says it does. I've got it on the list.

jonnyapple said:
How about just a 50mm 1.8? manual focus ring and manual aperture ring and an awesome lens to boot.

The trouble with this freelensing is that you'll lose focus at infinity. It's worth messing around with, though.

edit: just thought about it and realized I have about 25mm to play around with on my NEX e-mount. Someone needs to make a bellows f-mount adapter for that camera.

http://lensbaby.com/video.php?v=tilt-transformer

Well, I made a kluge version this afternoon since I don't yet have a body cap. I'm trying to upload pictures but dreamhost is down for some reason. I guess I'll use flickr...

I'm back. Here's the bellows with the 50 f/1.8:

You can see the aperture ring in the photo. You just unlock the orange switch to get off of f/22 (G lenses won't have the aperture ring, but D lenses do).

Here's a photo with no lens movements with the lens at f/5.6...

And here's one with the lens swung and tilted to put the plane with the three objects in focus. f/5.6 again.

This is going to be fun. I'm trying to think of how to best design it once I have both body caps.

Edit: So, for half the price of the Nikkor 45mm PC-E, I've got the NEX-5 and the 50 1.8. Based on my extensive (ha ha) use of large format cameras—something like 3 hours during this past summer—I actually prefer this setup because of the savings in weight. I also like the NEX's screen better than a loupe on a focus plate, and it works in much the same way.

jonnyapple said:
How about just a 50mm 1.8? manual focus ring and manual aperture ring and an awesome lens to boot.

The trouble with this freelensing is that you'll lose focus at infinity. It's worth messing around with, though.

edit: just thought about it and realized I have about 25mm to play around with on my NEX e-mount. Someone needs to make a bellows f-mount adapter for that camera.

The only issue with the 50mm 1.8 is, wouldn't you need to also tape the lever open?

jonnyapple said:
I just got off the phone with sony parts ordering a few body caps. I have no idea why my camera didn't come with a body cap.

I'm going to take an nex bodycap and a nikon rear lens cap and make a bellows system that will let me do lens movements with my 50mm 1.8 on my sony (or any other lens, for that matter, but that and the 60 macro are all that I have that have manual aperture control so I'd need to tape the lever up to get wider apertures on the others). I love this forum—why didn't I think of this sooner? Thanks NSX.

Yup, no problem, let us know how it goes.

I just got off the phone with sony parts ordering a few body caps. I have no idea why my camera didn't come with a body cap.

I'm going to take an nex bodycap and a nikon rear lens cap and make a bellows system that will let me do lens movements with my 50mm 1.8 on my sony (or any other lens, for that matter, but that and the 60 macro are all that I have that have manual aperture control so I'd need to tape the lever up to get wider apertures on the others). I love this forum—why didn't I think of this sooner? Thanks NSX.

padlockd said:
As far as the aperture lever goes, I'm hoping to find an old, fast-ish, manual focus lens at one of the many antique stores/auctions we have around here.

How about just a 50mm 1.8? manual focus ring and manual aperture ring and an awesome lens to boot.

The trouble with this freelensing is that you'll lose focus at infinity. It's worth messing around with, though.

edit: just thought about it and realized I have about 25mm to play around with on my NEX e-mount. Someone needs to make a bellows f-mount adapter for that camera.

Just saw a post similar to that one at Gizmodo. Pretty cool.

As far as the aperture lever goes, I'm hoping to find an old, fast-ish, manual focus lens at one of the many antique stores/auctions we have around here. I don't usually see any Nikon lenses, but there's plenty of unnamed Japanese-brand ones for way cheap.

Freelensing is when you remove your lens from the mount slightly away to get that tilt shift effect.

The issue is, if you do, doesn't the aperture lever get messed up? I'm wondering how much clearance the lever has, because once you remove the lens, the lens automatically "stops down".

http://lifehacker.com/5676792/take-interesting-selective-focus-photos-by-freelensing