If its possible to mount an enlarging lens with a shutter on my mp-3 copy camera, would i get better results than the standard polaroid 75mm lens that comes with this unit? I would like to copy some prints on to 4x5 negs, Paul.

-- paul m stevens (pmstevens@prodigy.net), May 30, 2001

Answers

Yes but the lens should be reversed mounted and the port for the illuminated aperture blocked off.

-- Bob Salomon (bobsalomon@mindspring.com), May 30, 2001.

Paul: I have done a lot of copy work with the Poloroid MP-3 copy camera and found the lenses that come with it do a decent job. Are you having problems with sharpness with the present lens? Maybe it is out of alignment or the film registration is off. To directly answer your question, you should be able to use an enlarger lens as a copy lens if mounted in a shutter that will fit the copy camera. The Tominon lenses that come with the MP-3 are four element tessar type lenses and usually perform pretty good stopped down. Many of the enlarging lenses are also four element lenses. The more expensive lenses are either five or six element lenses. Unless you have a shutter already that will fit both the camera and lens, it could get to be rather expensive. I would first check alignment and film register before spending a lot of money that may or may not make an improvement.

Regards,

-- Doug Paramore (dougmary@alaweb.com), May 30, 2001.

This is what I've done, and I got excellent results. I was surprised at how sharp my 4x5 transparencies were. I used a 150mm Componon-S mounted in a Copal 0 shutter. Depending on the particular shutter, whether it's designed for 120mm, 150mm, etc., one may need to make some exposure adjustments. I did some exposure tests and was guided by those. As it turned out, I did not reverse the lens.

-- neil poulsen (neil.fg@att.net), June 06, 2001.