A recent upgrade of equipment at my University meant that a large Epson digital projector was headed for the skip. Luckily, I was able to rescue the main lens with the help of one of the AV technicians, who kindly removed it during the decommission. The lens is a large motor driven unit, about 9” long. It had a collar attached with individual drives for focussing. I managed to remove this without damaging the function of the lens and freeing up the threads around the lens, so it can be manually focussed by hand.
The optics are very clear and must comprise several elements, as the lens weighs about a kilogram overall. The body is plastic, but like most Epson equipment, simple but well made. The focal distance or flange distance was conveniently short, so by just resting it next to the camera body, with the universal adaptor attached, I could focus quite easily.
The only problem was attaching it firmly enough to the camera, as the rear element was larger than the diameter of the camera. The only workaround was to use a cheese plate and some extenders and connectors, to make a secure base. The camera was attached by the tripod mount and the projector lens was zip tied to the cheese plate. As there is no aperture control on the lens, I added a Waterhouse style cardboard aperture of around F4 to see if I could sharpen up the focus slightly.
Everything is a little loose and needs a bit of work to refine the mount, but so far the results are quite pleasing, with the usual softness and slight halation I have come to expect from projector lenses, but which is in itself an attractive side effect.
The following shots were taken handheld, from indoors and the tree with the finches set at about 20’ away.
The depth of field is quite considerable and gives a good tonal range.
