A while ago we wrote about the Kickstarter project aimed at bringing the historic Petzval Lens to modern day 35mm DSLRs. Shortly after another Kickstarter was launched to bring this Petzval to the medium format crowd. While off the shelf options such as these can appeal to the masses there remain a few inventive photographers such as Dr. Dirk HR Spennemann who prefer to mix their passion for photography and history with some good old ingenuity to bring us a project simply called "The Antique Camera Simulator".

Dr. Spennemann has created a personal project called "The Antique Camera Simulator" which aims to replicate the capabilities of classic lenses on modern day DSLRs through a clever use of various spacers, reduction rings, and adapters. Since these classic lenses were developed to cover a much larger area than modern day 35mm sensors these varying combinations of rings and spacers are necessary to produce the images. Luckily Dr. Spennemann gives us an overview of all the components used in each of his "FrankenLenses". Starting with a Nikon D800 as the camera of choice for his project he has successfully been able to render images using several historic French and Japanese lenses.

The Hermagis Aplanat No8

Wide Angle Rectilinear 4 1/4 x 3 1/4

Panoramique A J Pipon

Krauss Tessar 180mm Lens

Make sure to visit his website for more images as well as details about the lenses and their respective setups.

[Via Charles Sturt University]