While I knew camera lenses could be used as loupes I haven't done it much
because Canon lenses, which I've long owned, don't lend themselves to the
technique. The pushbutton mount FD lenses automatically stop down to around
f/5.6, blocking too much of the view. Also, the Canon normal lenses appear
not to have a very flat field at such close range.
While I was ferrying my grandma around to some medical appointments the
other day I sat in the lobby trying to look at my first batch of Kodachromes
from my petwood project, taken with the OM-1.
It occurred to me that Zuikos aren't hindered by the auto-closing aperture
so I pulled the 50/1.8 off and tried it. While trying to judge the best
distance from lens front to slide, I ran right into the front of the lens.
Since I was holding the slide by the edges of the mount, no harm done. In
fact, the slide lodged itself into the generic folding rubber lens hood and
*stayed there*.
Suddenly I had a handier makeshift loupe than I'd expect. The generic
rubber hood (one of those things you find at Ritz, etc.) is slightly smaller
in diameter than the slide mount's diagonal, so it fits snugly and flush
against the lip of the hood. No contact against the emulsion. One-handed
operation.
It's not perfect - only about 60 0s viewable without distortion this way -
but the image quality is excellent. Unlike "true" loupes, distance isn't
really critical so by holding the slide slightly away from the lens one can
still view the entire image by moving it around a bit. And the lens can be
adjusted with the focus ring to suit the individual.
Yeh, I know, old news to many of you. But the Zuiko lends itself better to
this trick than my Canon FD lenses did.
-----------
Lex Jenkins
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Visit "Vistas Tejas" at http://www.photoscene.com/lexjenkins/
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