cheapest Canon HV20 35mm lens adapter ever
One should never be satisfied with the stock lens on a consumer camera. After reading some great websites about adding an SLR lens to the Canon HV20, I rummaged through my closet to find my old Canon Rebel 35mm SLR camera that came with a 28-80mm lens. It appeared that I could find focus with the HV20 if I kept the SLR lens within an inch or so in front of the HV20 and the subject nearly touching the SLR’s glass. Early tests produced macro shots I’ve never dreamed of doing before.
Digging in the closet once again produced an unlikely collar to fit between the two, an Erector set toy tire. The tire (labeled Meccano 11×7) grabs the Canon SLR lens threads tightly and mounts to the HV20 by merely twisting it onto the front of the camera. I’ve found that it leaves the proper gap to allow for focus with an adjustment of the zoom & focus rings on both the HV20 and the SLR lens.
The “true” lens adapter products I’ve seen range from homemade to thousands of dollars. This has got to be one of the cheapest and simplest adapters ever. It’s a pain to maintain focus with, and the tire can slip off the camera and drop the lens (adult supervision only), but it seems to work and produce some not-so-clean, but damn macro, macro video. Video test shots can be viewed here and macro photos are here.
January 7th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I really need to see this in action next week. We knew that Carrie married a really talented guy. This is awesome.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
My someone has lots of free time on his hands. Keep up the good work though, you keep recycling toy parts and they’ll stop recalling them from kids and let the parents put them to good use!
March 8th, 2008 at 4:26 am
So what is the easiest and most practical way I can achieve the same results I am very new to this so it seam complicated. And is there a certain lens and adapter that will work best for me that I can buy on ebay
March 9th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Here’s the Canon EOS lens I’m using. The EOS or EF lenses have a 3-tongue mount (one is seen in pic 4 above) that perfectly fits the Meccano (Erector) toy tire and the tire slides onto the nose of the HV20. You can probably find the tires sold as a set in hobby stores, or get one in an Erector Set like I got mine. The EOS lens would probably be found cheapest at a pawn shop. My 28-80mm lens came as part of my Canon Rebel 2000 SLR kit. It’s not a pro lens, so I would assume many photographers upgraded and pawned these lenses… Good luck!
March 22nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
dean,
Hey bud, looks cool, what you’ve done with the HV20. I’d love to see you shoot some people in the daytime with a shallow focus effect.
Also, what model erector set did you pull that tire out of? I found this link online called the “Erector by Meccano Building Set”.
http://www.rcslot.com/pc-radio-control-slot-cars/EBM843700E.html
Cheers,
Justin
April 1st, 2008 at 9:27 am
Howdy Justin,
I’d love to shoot some people, but this rug doesn’t work quite like a normal DOF adapter since it’s missing some seriously important components like a focusing screen inside the tire. I can only gain focus when the slr lens is about 1/4″ away from the subject I’m shooting…so this rig is currently only good for crazy macro shots.
The Erector set I got the tire from was one of the multi-model sets, like this 50-in-one. The one you linked looks like it has slick tires, which is not what I used. It may work the same, though, as long as the tire is the same wheel size. Not sure how to find that spec out on these toys.
September 11th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
You need a macro lens. This is not a 35mm adapter…
October 28th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
can’t works! No focusing screen inside!
October 28th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
November 16th, 2008 at 6:46 am
hi dean great work man…
can you also provide us a test image please..
November 16th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Sure, video test shots can be viewed here and macro photos are here.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:32 am
[...] This is the cheapest Canon HV20 35mm lens adapter ever. [...]
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:57 am
this may not work 35mm adapters projects image on semi transparent screen and camera capt?res that screen in macro mode. the external lens does not become a lens of the camera. in short there are 2 different systems working together to produce a short dof and high grain to imitate film look.