The acquisition of these toys was initially inspired not by conventional photography but the desire to digitize very small negatives and perhaps up to 35mm negatives and slides. The first step was to get some basic gear and get some idea about what it might do and what sort of physical spacing was needed. While targeted here at the EOS 40D DSLR, many of the techniques could apply to other cameras and situations.

So YOP waded in with all four feet! For really close flat field macros, a common technique is to use a lens in reverse. Optically that is simple enough and it seemed an ideal situation to use some fine Canon FD manual focus glass we have here. There is one little catch — how to run the lens aperture in manual mode when essentially not mounted on the camera. (This gets even messier with an EF lens, as there needs to be electrical connections between the EOS body and lens since many EF and EF-s lenses have no manual aperture ring.

Canon once sold a special gizmo to put on the mount of a reversed FD lens and permit manual adjustment of the aperture. The bad news, they are rare as hen's teeth; the good news, one can modify a standard rear lens cap by cutting out most of the flat round portion, and then use a small block of rubber — YOP used a chunk cut from a white vinyl art eraser to block the aperture control tab into a position to set the aperture. The modified cap presses some magic tabs down and results in freeing the mechanism, simulating the lens being on a camera.

One other catch, one bayonet flange of the lens cap had a small tab that limited the maximum rotation angle preventing the cap engaging with enough rotation to unlock the mechanism. A few moments with a razor saw and file fixed that!

The bellows has EF/EOS fittings at each end. It was inexpensive (under $50 in 2016) but the standards are plastic and the fit of some items is rather sloppy, making adjustments a bit tedious. The price is low and it appears to work reasonably effectively, if somewhat annoyingly. Perhaps this compulsive tinkerer may find ways to shim and/or adjust the rack mechanism which is pretty bad. The cross slide is not a serious precision part either, although it is far smoother and more precise than the bellows when adjusting. Again, via China through ePrey, the price was relatively modest.

We have now added a set of extension tubes which can not only mount Canon EOS/EF lenses, but carry through the electrical connections. It should be pointed out that the likelihood of auto-focus working effectively is fairly remote, but it does appear to permit confirmation of focus and f-stop control.

And given some frustration over the stop-down problem with the FD 50mm f/1.8, it occurred to Ye Olde Photographer that the old Konica Hexanon 52mm f/1.4 from the 1960s was a rather good lens and the camera it goes with is non-functional, so he tried that with some success. To hold the lens in stopped down mode he removed the mounting flange from his old Konica macro bellows (which is way better made than his current EOS model!) It bayonets onto the lens and a spring loaded tab stops the lens down. The four retaining screws were saved in their mounting holes in the bellows and that could be easily restored to operation if desired.

January 2017: Did some quick and simple tests to determine lens-to-subject distance for 35mm and Minox sized frames. Discovered the reversed Konica Hexanon 52mm would not cover the 24x36mm 35mm film frame outline. So whilst playing, installed the regular Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens and took shots of the larger frame with it and made some measurements. (Now we can wonder about picking up an EF 50mm or 60 ... or 40mm pancake or ... and even digitizing from 6x6 and 6x9cm negatives -- even 4x5! Heck, maybe even 8x10!)

May 2019: An irresistable opportunity presented itself on a photography forum Ye Olde Photographer hangs out on. He acquired a Canon Bellows FL macro bellows to fit his Canon FD gear. This is a beautifully engineered precision manufactured unit that rivals anything made today. In addition, the gear came with a Canon Slide Duplicator designed to work with the bellows. This device attaches to the end of the bellows rail and contains a pocket to slide a transparency into, as well as a door and guide pins to permit putting a film strip through. The gear is in excellent condition and could be useful for its originally intended purpose. But YOP hopes also to attach his EOS M5 to the bellows via the FotoDiox Pro FD to M5 adapter already in hand and use it to digitize 35 mm slides and negatives. This has the potential to be way faster than a scanner, and with the EOS M5, can produce 24 megapixel images. At the moment the only frustration is a "tripod foot" at the bottom of the adapter interferes with the rear bellows standard. The literature claims the foot is removable but a timid try failed to break the countersunk screw loose. YOP will meditate on that a bit before going gorilla on a $50 adapter!