I want to keep a list of people who do a great job of inspiring us to adapt lenses, the good photography customizers, artisans, machinists, mad scientists who make and modify photography gear. It seems like there are many of these doing nice work online, yet I have never found a good list. I wish I could buy stuff from every one of them and then vouch for the good ones, but unfortunately not yet.
- S.K. Grimes was maybe the quintessential craftsman of this kind, making a range of custom pieces of photography equipment, and the work goes on under his name.
- R. Roesch makes some tripod collars for Micro Four Thirds zooms that lack them.
- Wimberly Inc is a father-son duo making tripod heads and gimbals.
- AWB Enterprises makes and repairs large format gear.
- Retro Foto House before the Ukraine War was making most of the best video content about Soviet Helios lenses, and still is selling lenses including customized lenses and hard-to-find adapters on eBay.
Thoughts? Drop me a line with any inspiring photographers, interesting lenses, or creative constructeurs making it possible to mount these optical critters on modern cameras. I’ll keep updating this post and adding the best as I learn of them.