Cameron Davidson

Back in my early days, I was a hard core Leica shooter.  I owned a Leicaflex SL, an SL2 and an M2.  I started my photographic life as a bird shooter and one of my favorite lenses was my Leica 400mm Telyt.  When I made the switchover to Nikon, Dick Baghdassarian of Pro Photo in DC converted my 400 Telyt to Nikon mount.  Soon thereafter, I picked up a 560mm Telyt and used both of the lenses on two bird stories I shot for National Geographic. (Great Blue Herons ran in January 1984 and the Mississippi Kites story was released by NGS and  ran in Smithsonian in 1987) .

Eventually I sold the Telyt’s so I could purchase  for a 300 F/2.8 Nikkor. A lens that paid for itself many times over. Last year I found a 400mm Telyt on eBay in excellent condition. I bought a Leica R to Canon EOS adapter and used it a few times on the 1Ds III. I had problems focusing the Telyt on the Canon and set it aside until I could find the perfect focusing screen for the 1Ds III/Telyt combo.

I have several friends who are lens gurus of sorts.  Mark Tucker has made several modified mounts for his Hasselblads and Canons. Everything from a Mamiya 80mm f/1.9 adapted to a Canon to a Schneider magnifying loupe mounted in a gasket on a body cap. Blair Bunting, Michael Prince and David Lehman are big fans of the early 1980 Nikkor 50mm f/1.4  lenses. David Burnett , Robb Scharetg, Chris Usher and Alastair Bird love using big, fast and old glass on large format cameras.  Alex Jones, my former assistant and now ace digital tech and owner of  Steel Gate Studio in Pittsburgh is a tinkerer with lenses from way back.  Alex has a Holga lens mounted on a Hasselblad V frame with an Imacon 132 medium format back.  The point is, you do not have to just use the lenses made by Canon/Sony/Pentax/Nikon for your Canon/Sony/Pentax/Nikon.  There is a wide world out there of old lenses that have a distinct and special look that can be adapted to fit your camera.

Many folks rave about the Leica wide-angle lenses on the Canon EOS bodies.  If you need to use one, you lose autofocus and the lens becomes totally manual, but the glass sings, especially compared to the Canon wides.  It is pretty easy to adapt a Leica lens to a Canon body, not so easy for a Pentax, or Nikon due to body thickness.

Enter David Llado of Barcelona, Spain.  David’s company, Leitax, makes custom mounts for converting Leica R lenses to Pentax, Nikon, Sony, Sigma or Canon plus Contax lenses for Pentax K and M42 mounts.

A little over a week ago, I wrote David about converting my 400mm Telyt to Nikon F mount.   He assured me that it could be done but required some surgery to the back of the lens mount for his Nikon mount to be properly fitted.  I knew I was never going to use it on a Leica R Camera.  I ordered the mount and read his instructions on how to remove the two Leica R cams that were part of the Telyt mount.

First thing you do is remove the Leica R mount from the back of the lens. The screws are small and it takes a thin blade screwdriver to remove them from the mount. My friend Tal McBride took the mount off and shaved the cams with the dremel while I photographed the process with my G10. Best to remove the front section of the Telyt and keep it safely away from the aluminum shavings flying off the dremel stone.

Use a dremel to slowly remove the aluminum cams from the rear of the lens.

The 400 Telyt is a lite weight lens and breaks into two pieces.  The front section is the focusing tube and 400mm objective.  The rear tube holds the series 7 filters and mounts on the camera.  You can use the 560mm Telyt on the same rear tube.

It is very important that you remove any and all burrs from the shaved cams.

Run your dremel with a smaller stone on the inside of the cam to catch any hanging aluminum threads.

Nikon mount on the 400 Telyt. Yes, that is Joe McNally's Hot Shoe Diaries book in the background. Make sure you blow out the inner and outer tubes of the lens at least twice. You don't want to have any aluminum shavings on your sensor.

The Telyt on my D3 plus RRS head and Gitzo set among the wild sunflowers growing in my yard.

About a quarter of the frame to show sharpness at the center. The grackle is a daily visitor to my feeder.

A baby Starling and mother in my Crape Myrtle. Shot hand held with the Telyt.

I checked infinity focus by shooting cars on an avenue a block away.  The focus was perfect.

Contact David Llado at info@leitax.com. The web site is: http://www.leitax.com. There is an extensive list of lenses that can be converted.  There is a comment page  showing Leica lenses on Nikon bodies.  Worth checking out the glass that was repurposed and the comments. http://www.leitax.com/Feedback/indexNikon.html