You need a Macro!

Sharp focus was fairly easy to eyeball on the spinning gg and the Nikon F3 Type D focus screen. Just move it closer or further until you get a sharp image with the lens set to infinity. The tricky part was getting the camcorder to focus on the ground glass. What the human eye can see sharply does not translate to what a single CCD camera can see. It's a very small target (maybe half an inch high and an inch wide of good image) even for the small 28mm lens on the Canon ZR200. Using the Canon S410's video mode wasn't any good since there is not way to engage macro and photo at once. I don't know too many camcorders with a macro mode so I probably will need a set of macro lenses.

But this doesn't stop me from conducting experiments. The spinning disk really is good for a nicer image. And the distance from lens to ground glass matte side was about 40mm. That's 6.5mm shorter than advertised for the Nikon F mounts. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Fortunately its all adjustable. (Update: I was being silly measuring from the back of the lens to the ground glass. 46.5mm is measured from the F mount to the matte side of the ground glass. So my flange focal length to focal plane is really 46.5mm give or take!)

The spinner is half-built. I have to look for Macro lenses to help the camcorder out. At first I thought to just go out and buy 28mm close-up (I don't mind chromatic aberation at this point). But then I thought that a macro lens like any other magnifier will look warped unless I get a bigger lens. I don't know if that's right but it probably won't hurt. At least I hope not.