A $2.5K purchase of a lens made with elements sourced from a point-and-shoot camera makes the same sense as finding the legendary Minolta TC-1 (analog.cafe/r/minolta-tc-1…) 28mm G-Rokkor lens in a M-mount. When Minolta made those outstanding point-and-shoot cameras in the late ‘90s, they also produced a limited number of the same lenses for Leica rangefinders.
Some point-and-shoot cameras made in this period have incredible optics; however, those cameras can not last forever. My TC-1 bricked after two years of use, which wouldn’t happen with the lens alone. The reliability is a huge factor when it comes to these cameras, no matter how well they were built.
The folks at Omnar went a little further with their rehousing, however, making the Pantessa in a way that it projects an enormous ~60mm image circle — which means it can work with medium format digital cameras.
This shot was made with the lens adapted to Fuji GFX 100ii.
Dmitri Dec 20, ‘24