Possible to modify a toy-lens Nikon mount for Pentax? (its plastic)

[JayR]

I want to get the Diana lenses for use on my Pentax, but they only make the lens adapter for Canon & Nikon mounts.
I note that the Nikon mount is very similar to Pentax and I tested it on a Pentak K-01 in the shop today - fits in, but doesnt quite turn/lock in place so wouldnt be secure.

Given the similarities in mount shape, Im wondering if it would be possible to physically modify the Nikon adapter so that it would lock into my Pentax DSLR.
I know some people like bodging around with this stuff, I dont trust myself to do it without some tutorial!

I have the Diana mini if I want to blow a whole roll of 35mm, and the Holga for DSLR but like the image quality of the Diana more - I want this for some occasional digital stuff and video out of my Pentax K7.

[I @ M]

I'm sorry to say it but ---

Why spend the time and energy mucking around with products that are made to be incompatible when you could probably pick up an old Pentax kit lens from cash converters or the like, hit the front element with a hammer, smear vaseline all over it and still have the same IQ and effects as the Diana.

[Kym]

Andrew

The bigger difference is that the Nikon registration distance is different.
There are 3rd party Nikon Lens -> Pentax body (K mount) adapters on ebay that have a lens element that adjusts the difference.

BUT! For ~$100 you can get a manual Pentax SMC 50/1.7 which is brilliant!
Get a nifty 50 and have much more fun

[JayR]

I'm sorry to say it but ---

Why spend the time and energy mucking around with products that are made to be incompatible when you could probably pick up an old Pentax kit lens from cash converters or the like, hit the front element with a hammer, smear vaseline all over it and still have the same IQ and effects as the Diana.

ha, you serious?
I know its lo-fi, but if you cant tell the difference, then you're not looking hard enough or just being a snob!
Imagery is imagery as far as Im concerned, otherwise we get stuck in silly debates about whether digital is even 'real' photography, electronic music is real music etc etc etc. Sure, I could probably tweak a near-Diana type of pre-setting in lightroom, but I'd rather do it straight out of the camera (as well as it being a hell of a lot quicker)
I could use my Holga, but I prefer the Diana look. And though I grew up on film and film SLRs, its just something cheap to muck about with and Im not going to be too precious every time I fire the shutter.


And Kym, yes I have Pentax already (including an old ME super and an MZ-30) but its converting a Nikon to Pentax mount that Im interested in, not the other way around!

[I @ M]

ha, you serious?
I know its lo-fi, but if you cant tell the difference, then you're not looking hard enough or just being a snob!
Imagery is imagery as far as Im concerned,

My turn to ask if you are serious.

Gotta agree with you as far as imagery being imagery and it doesn't matter two fifths of one third what kind of gear an image is taken with to me because if the picture works or clicks with me then it is worthwhile so I can't quite see where you are getting off in telling me that I am not looking hard enough.

Rather obviously you feel the need to get people to look hard at images and spot some mystical element in them that is created with a "name brand" lens.

If you want technical perfection in images then just buy the top of the line gear and apply technique to capture them.
If you want artistically interesting, simply use whatever falls to hand in the way of gear and put your perspective into them.
Once again, do you have to rely on a certain lens to create that work and feel that it needs to be used to make up for your possible short comings or is it a little bit trendy (snobbish) to be able to quote "Diana lens" to the viewers?

[mongo]

I hope you guys are not going to turn this into a slinging match.

A simple question was asked. Mongo is going to try and answer it.

Mongo uses both nikon and pentax gear. This same question and exercise has come to MOngo many times before. The short answer is , NO. The reasons are not in the modification of the bayonet mount - which is doable with some effort but rather , it is in the difference of distance from the rear of the nikon mount (or should he say the relevant lens elements/focus point) to the sensor in the pentax body when compared to the pentax norm for this distance. As Kym said, there is a fancy mount developed just to overcome this problem. That mount has lenses in it to be able to do this - to the best of Mongo's knowledge, it is not doable otherwise. MOngo used to think if he could modify the mount to fit, it might work but simply not be able to focus at infinity. However, he now believes there is more to it as described previously.

The irony is that you can buy a mount (and mongo has bought one and it works great) that will allow you to put your pentax 645 lenses onto your Nikon. Mongo understands that is nothing like the exercise you have in mind but it is interesting to note.

[JayR]

My turn to ask if you are serious.

Gotta agree with you as far as imagery being imagery and it doesn't matter two fifths of one third what kind of gear an image is taken with to me because if the picture works or clicks with me then it is worthwhile so I can't quite see where you are getting off in telling me that I am not looking hard enough.

Rather obviously you feel the need to get people to look hard at images and spot some mystical element in them that is created with a "name brand" lens.

If you want technical perfection in images then just buy the top of the line gear and apply technique to capture them.
If you want artistically interesting, simply use whatever falls to hand in the way of gear and put your perspective into them.
Once again, do you have to rely on a certain lens to create that work and feel that it needs to be used to make up for your possible short comings or is it a little bit trendy (snobbish) to be able to quote "Diana lens" to the viewers?

For me, Ive always worked on getting as much right when taking the photo rather than spending even more time in either the dark room or PPing in Lightroom/Photoshop.
Its coming from a time issue rather than the 'you cant polish a turd' angle, if you get me.

Yeah, Im sure you can emulate to *some* extent it if you want to.
Maybe I'm being irrational (or lazy?) in that for this kind of thing, I see it as kind of convoluted to attempt to recreate a faulty lens effect from a 'perfect' image, and its not exactly expensive for a few bits of Diana plastic. Its definitely more than just a name or bragging rights (lol!) as I just prefer the effects of the Diana over the Holga, for example.
I'd rather spend the time out shooting than in front of my computer, but thats just me and I freely admit that.

Mongo uses both nikon and pentax gear. This same question and exercise has come to MOngo many times before. The short answer is , NO. The reasons are not in the modification of the bayonet mount - which is doable with some effort but rather , it is in the difference of distance from the rear of the nikon mount (or should he say the relevant lens elements/focus point) to the sensor in the pentax body when compared to the pentax norm for this distance. As Kym said, there is a fancy mount developed just to overcome this problem. That mount has lenses in it to be able to do this - to the best of Mongo's knowledge, it is not doable otherwise. MOngo used to think if he could modify the mount to fit, it might work but simply not be able to focus at infinity. However, he now believes there is more to it as described previously.

Yeah I wondered about registration distance but given the lo-fi nature of the plastic lens, is anything in infinity focussed even with the proper mount?
From what I had heard, the proper Nikon - Pentax adapter acts as a small tele converter, so not sure if that was ideal.

[arthurking83]

You can get cheapie Nikon F to Pentax mount converters for about $30-60 on ebay, but some may not focus to infinity, and the more expensive versions with the necessary refocusing lens will.

Their quality will be suspect tho .. but in considering the application, I don't think this would make a difference anyhow.

[fillum]

It looks like the actual Diana lens part is the same for both Nikon & Canon and you attach the appropriate adapter for your body. I wonder if you could grind/cut off the back off the adapter and somehow attach the remaining front bit to a Pentax body cap to mount? Unfortunately there's probably only one way to find out . (I think these are the adapters).


Cheers.

[arthurking83]

FWIW:

In general the shorter the register distance of the camera/lens system, the wider the variety of other brands of lenses can be adapted to it.
That is, Pentax having a shorter register distance than Nikon, should by right be able to fit Nikon lenses with a simple non optical adapter and still achieve infinity focus.

But it doesn't!
Reason is that the Nikon F mount has a larger diameter than the Pentax mount, and because the differences in the two formats is so small, the adapter can't be made(without relay optics) to allow the Nikon lens to focus on the Pentax body.

If the difference was larger, or the Pentax's mount diameter larger9eg, Canon EF style .. no problemo!

But then again, infnity focus is not always what it's cracked up to be.

I got a couple of weird little lens types(M42 and M39) I use on my Nikon and I can't see why there has to be a need to focus to infinity all the time.

In fact the Amar lens does focus to infinity anyhow, but it's kind'a useless there , so there's no point in doing so and because it has no means of focusing, it needs to be mounted onto a bellows(or external focusing helicoid, which I don't have) and that's an M42 lens.

The 75mm M39 lens is a speciality lens that I want for closeups anyhow it won't focus to infinity on the F mount.

Andrew's Voightlander and Pentax M42 lenses almost focus to infinity .. I think from memory approx 5m or so for the Pentax 50/1.8 and about 10 or more meters for the Voightlander.

To the OP.. chances are that you may get lucky and find that you can get close to infinity focus with your toy lens, but the point is, is it worth the expense.

You could be better off getting a cheap wide angle lens adapter for fitment to the front of one of your lenses for less money, make sure it's the cheapest version you can find, and it'll achieve the same plastic toy like effect on your images.

Got to say too about this Diana lens thingame ... never heard of them until now .. and I think I know why(I'm guessing it's passive regressive amnesia or something!)
Have to ask(as with Andrew) .. "WHY?"

Yeah, some folks seem to think to themselves "Why not?" ... but there's an answer for that ... plastic crap for the price of great glass is one good reason to ask "WHY?".. but I'm yet to think of any answers to "Why not".

I had a quick look on ebay to see what the fuss is about and the marketing on these is completely idiotic!
Now I'm the first to admit that having 'The Best' is an over rated objective

... but when the marketing department comes up with "Who needs glass, when you can have plastic?" .... .. it's time to close that web page down and look into other avenues for alternative looking imagery.

The makers of these things are simply ripping you off due to this incessant need from Gen Y to hop onto the latest cool trendy fad bandwagon express.

You want the same look for a much cheaper price, get yerself a large magnifying glass, stick it in front of any standard plastic kit lens(most folks get one with their first DLSR as a kit!!) and you save about $50 in the process(cheap magnifying glasses sell for about $5-10 at a discount variety store).
If you have duct tape and an empty can of Pringles lying about the place, then you have the other necessary items available.

The other option(and the one I'd be inclined to use) is to simply stick this plastic toy lens into the Pentax and go shooting!
The lens is obviously made of plastic, and unless something at Pentax land has changed .. Pentax camera mounts are metal.
You can't damage the camera in any way, and if you damage the lens .. does it matter?
Whack it on, duct tape it of it feels too insecure and fire away.

Adapting lenses isn't hard .. it's finding the time to do it that's hard.

[JayR]

Its not THAT expensive!

The actual plastic Diana adapter is about $20 - I'd rather make a few cuts on that than fork out for a proper Nikon-Pentax adapter.
The lenses can be had for $25. Its not a massive investment and while Im more than aware of the marketing hype, its just something I'd rather achieve straight out of the box (adapter mods aside) that starting to source older lenses, taking them apart and trying to fit them together in some way!
Guess Im currently more time poor than worrying about a few options in set up for under $100!

Dont worry, its not about to get more time on my camera than my limited primes!!!

And PS, Im gen X - I actually remember the plastic toy cameras and the weird wonderful accidents that could be had with them.

[Kym]

My main concern would be damaging the camera body, maybe via getting some dirt or plastic on the sensor. Be careful

[arthurking83]

......

- I'd rather make a few cuts on that than fork out for a proper Nikon-Pentax adapter ......

Apologies for the mistaken generation assumption.
And I'd be doing the mount mod too if it were mine.