Close-up of a glass paperweight. Very close...

Was tidying up and out some things today. An old slide projector that my Mum picked up somewhere. Lacking the holder for the slides, it wasn't much use. And these days I'd more likely scan the slides and use a multi-media projector, if wanting to bore folk with my photos. So after moving between various peoples lofts for years, I decided to strip it down. Must be from the 1960's. Salvaged a few bits, and put the rest aside for the recycling centre.

It was made by Zeiss, so I can now say I have a couple of Zeiss lenses! Albeit not in a form you could mount on a camera. They both seem to act as quite good close-up magnifiers, so I thought they'd come in handy for some of the teeny electronic things I work with - especially as the old eyes ain't what they used to be. The outer lens was mounted in a tube that the projector users could easily adjust to set the focus.

Later on, with the light outside fading, no Blip in the bag, I pondered various ideas... "What would happen if I held that lens in the tube against the end of the Nikon 1 V1's telephoto lens? it would fit around the glass without touching it. So not damage it. But could it be focused on something?"

Well it could be focused. but only on things that were very nearby. Perhaps not the best subject chosen today. Something flatter might be better for the very limited depth of field.

This could be fun. Not much chance of high sharpness images from it. Lomoesque is more likely! Suspect it would focus on things far away if I turned it the other way around. But that's for another day.

The electronic engineer here is already considering adding some white LED's to light up subjects that would be shaded by the close proximity of lens and photographer. Perhaps also an adapter to mount it onto another lens? Project ideas, cogs turning...