Here we have the Titch of Tlens I built over the last couple of weeks. Using a lens from a 70 year old camera. In this video I want to tell you the story of how I built this lens, show you how it works and thank you with me on a photography session. A couple of years ago, shortly after my journey into analog film photography began, I discovered the joy of shooting foldable film cameras. Or, to be more specific, the Franco Solidar too. Due to the quite unique style of the images, this camera quickly became one of my favourites. So when I saw it on eBay for just 9 bucks, I bought a second one right away. Because for a long time now I wanted to combine the image quality of the old lens with the capabilities of my Sony A7. And after quickly unscrewing the ring that was holding everything in place, I had the lens I needed to do exactly that. So this is the story about how I built it to the shift lens. Although I had a quite clear image in mind of what I wanted to build, I didn't really know where to begin. So a couple of weeks ago I finally decided to face the challenge of building my own lens by breaking it down into smaller parts. In the end, I ended up with 3 main problems I had to solve. First, mounting the lens to the camera. Second, building the ballos. Third, building the tilt shift mechanism. The mounting problem was rather easy to solve. I just had to buy a reversing ring. These are typically used to mount your lens backwards onto your camera, giving you a cheap alternative to a macro lens. Because I didn't intend to use it as a reversing ring though, I decided to remove the tilt of the bread, resulting in a big flat surface I could later use to attach the ballos. Speaking of the ballos, I thought about using the ballos straight from the old film camera, but in the end decided to make my own. That way I had a lot more flexibilities in terms of shape and size. As material for the ballos, I decided to use black wine, mostly because it was more or less completely light proof. To have it chosen the material it was now time to actually design the ballos. And although there are tools online to generate ballo patterns, I decided to do it myself. To do so, I started by getting some measurements of the lens and lens mount I intended to connect using the ballos. After having done so, I drew up these trapezoid shapes. The smaller side, being a bit wider than the diameter of the lens, and the wider side being a bit wider as the lens mount on the Sony A7. The length of these trapezoids was roughly 150% of the focal length of the lens. So in this case, 110mm for a 75mm focal length lens. After that, I divided these trapezoids into equal parts of 7mm, and hindsight, 6 of 5 might have been a bit better. However, for the remaining size, I drew up similar trapezoids. This time, I would draw the stair like pattern on the side. This would later make it a lot easier to fold the ballos. Now it was time to cut out all the little pieces. After having done that, I used some masking tape to hold them in place. That way, I could easily transfer them onto the black vinyl. Another, I placed a whole arrangement in the way that there was a bit of free space to the left, and lots of vinyl to the right. That way the seam wouldn't be on the edge of the ballos when gluing everything together. For the inside of the ballos, they also used vinyl. In retrospect, soft black fabric would have been a better solution. However, after gluing everything together, I was left with something that was only one step away from being the ballos I needed. That step was folding. Now when it comes to folding the ballos, the beginning is, in my opinion, the most difficult part. But if you start with a base looking roughly like what you see in the video, and then continue by making alternating inside and outside folds, you'll get there no time. In my experience, it really helps going at it with a bit of force and pressing everything together to get the best result. So after a bit of rough persuasion, the ballos were done. And there was only one problem remaining. Building the tilt shift mechanism. Encouraged by my success at building the ballos I decided to don't even make plans and just start building. I began with building the lens mount. To do so, I needed to build two parts. The first one was a 2mm thick brass wheel and the second one was the actual lens mount itself. I cut out both parts using the jigsaw and bent the lens hold and placed using a hammer at my waist. There are obviously more exact ways to build something like that, but as everything would later be mounted on a movable base, I didn't care too much about precision. Speaking of a movable base, it was time to build exactly that. I started by building a U-shaped piece of 2mm brass to later connect to the lens mount. The next part I built was later used to connect the lens to the tripod mount of the camera. If you want to build something like that yourself, make sure that this part is long enough so that the lens won't focus length away from the sensor. After that, only one part was missing before assembly. Basically, a piece of wood was a big hole in the middle. This piece would work as a connector between the reversing ring and the balance. But now it's finally time for assembly. As you can see, before gluing everything together permanently, I used double-sided tape to test if everything would. And to my relief, it did. After all that work, it's finally time to mount the lens onto the camera. Unlike most lenses, this is a two-step process. First, you attach the lens to the lens mount of the camera as you would with any other lens. After that, you use a quarter-inch screw to attach the bottom part of the switch-shift mechanism. That's it. So let me quickly explain to you how the lens works and then take you with me on a photography session. The lens in and of itself works more or less the same as it has worked before. The focus is nicely visible on the top. And the aperture can be changed on the bottom. When it comes to the exposure time, though, that's a bit different than before. As you can see, the lens is currently set to bold mode, meaning it's open as long as the trigger is pressed. Now, I don't have to hold down the trigger manually, but rather mount the lens in a way that the lens mount constantly presses against the trigger. This means that the lens always lets through light and the exposure time can be set in camera. But now, let me take you outside to show you what this lens is capable of. To test the lens, I went to one of my go-to gear testing location. In the beginning, I had thought about placing the camera on a tripod. That way I could easily position the lens I wanted and then pass on all the screws before shooting. But I didn't do that. Instead, I loosened all the screws and just moved the lens with my hand. In combination with focus peaking on my Sony A7, this would give me an amazingly intuitive way of playing with the tilt-shift effect. Now, when shooting, I worried about overusing the tilt-shift effect. But looking at the images on the big screen now, I think I could have gone a lot further. Another thing, you might notice is that all the images are focused on far away objects. This is not because you can't do close-up shots using the lens, but because I just forgot to get some of those. Besides that, I think that the images turn out quite okay for being just test images. And I'm astonished by the quality of those more or less self-made lens or lens mount or whatever you want to call it. It's getting pretty dark out, so I think I'm going to call it a day and go home now. If you want to stay a bit longer though, you can watch some of the videos on screen now. As always, if you have any questions, be sure to ask them in the comments. And if you want to see more of these weekly videos, subscribe. Until then, see you next video.