The basic question is: are there wide angle converters on the market that are placed behind the lens on a 35 mm photo camera? A sort of tele extender that makes the focal length shorter instead of longer.
Now I don't mean a wide angle converter that goes in front of the lens, but one that goes in between the lens and the film.
From advertisements in Sky & Telescope I know that there are so called focal length reducers (factor .6 or .7) for telescopes, a sort of negative barlow lens (or should I say, a sort of positive barlow lens?).
Why do I need it? Well, on the 35 mm Eclair movie camera that will be in operation soon, I want to place Nikkor lenses. Since the 35 mm cine format is only approximately 24 x 16 millimeters, all my focal lengths are doubled. For instance, a 24mm f/2,0 becomes 48 mm f/2,0.
Worst of all, the 8 mm f/2,8 Nikkor fish-eye that I intend to buy, doesn't get a full circle on the negative since it becomes almost the equivalent of 16 mm on 35 cine format (the projection circle is 22 mm).
So a .6 or .7 wide angle converter would be nice, wouldn't it. Even better, with such a converter, my 24 mm f/2,0 would become something like a 28 mm f/1,4 which is great, and a 20 mm f/2,8 would even become a 24 mm f/2,0 or so.
The main problem is: Nikon doesn't have one
I can imagine that the reason for that is that such a converter should be exactly made to fit only one type of lens...
I've tried the Kenko fisheye adaptor but it gives a lot of flare and I want the sun and moon walking through my time-lapse movies. Only real good wide angle lenses, like the Nikkors fish-eyes are without flare...
I hope someone can help me on this. I wouldn't mind refitting an existing wide angle convertor to Nikon bajonet, that is common practice in cinema: it is not uncommon to use Zeiss, Canon, Nikkor, Kinoptic and Angenieux lenses on the same cinema camera.
Oh well, I hope it makes sense, it is quite a difficult and practical problem...
greetings, Jan Lameer