Going beyond 90mm for Macrophotography

Hi, I am new to this forum but I have been a reader for years. So I know you are ones I can follow advices from.

I have a Pentax K5. I have been able to get my hand on a Vivitar Serie 1 90mm f2.5 and its 1:1 adaptator. That means beautifulness and true sharpness.

But I want more. I would like to use a close-up ring to go beyond the 90mm. So there is my questions:

Considering the hight quality of the macro lens, should I buy a cheap close-up rings kit and trust my lens for the final sharpness? Or should I buy Canon 500D close-up ring, which is quite expensive, so the quality remains not too damaged?

In other words, does the Canon 500D close-up rings worth its price?

In term of budget, both are possible. But I have others items (Pentax 40mm pencake, flash & tripod) I want to buy so the money which goes here will not go there...

Thank you very much!

Here's my first shot:
https://umibudogoyaandco.shost.ca/wp...IMGP8564-2.jpg

Firstly, welcome to CiC. Will be useful if you fill in the member details with your location and a name as we are all friendly here.

Secondly, excellent capture of the mantis one of my favourites to photograph.

And thirdly, have you considered 'extension tubes' as an alternative to a CU lens. The CU lensed will degrade IQ to a certain degree and the advice generally is never buy cheap ones.

There's some good info in the Macro tutorial section here explaining magnification affect along with pros and cons of each method.

Grahame

Thanks for your reply. I have updated my profile.
As for the tube solution, I read in a guide (not yours cause I haven't read it yet) that the shorter the focal is, the better tubes work. As I am working with a 90mm (~135mm), I thought tubes shall not be very efficient. But if you tell me it will give me something interesting, sure I willl go with this really cheap and IQ preserving solution! :)

As I recently found out it appears that anything more than the 2 dioptre Close-up lens will not give even reasonable IQ and far better as Grahame suggests you should get extension tubes.
That cheap set of CU lens is rubbish, I've got one :) , they will degrade what your lens produces.

However it is desirable that you get a set of "auto extension tubes" rather than the cheaper plain tube type. I do not know your Pentax lens but unless it has a manual aperture control as well as the automatics it will likely default to wide open ... fine for focusing but normally you want to be able to use a small aperture for maximum depth of field ... these days of stacking it maybe possible to work wide open but even then most lens are not at their best used wide open.

I did a search of Amazon, Ebay and B&H [ New York ] and unless the camera and lens are M42 compatible Auto extension tube sets are only found on Ebay and pricey like over UKP 100 with single ones less.

But as I say I don't know the Pentax digital cameras/ Vivitar lens but since it is a minor player with digital there seems a scarcity of auto tubes. If the lens has a manual adjustment of aperture and even better the typical Pentax "auto-manual' slider then you 'could' get plain tubes as I have had and used for decades [ my legacy Pentax lenses].

If you search for Grahame's thread you will see excellent results using extension tubes.

I did a quick test with a 4 dioptre B&W Schnieder CU lens which from the name I assumed would be good and also happened to have a set of auto extension tubes. Used on my Panasonic GH2 with the 'older' 14-140mm zoom.... I prefer to use CU lens in principle but not when they do not produce the goods :)

Both straight out of camera with only resizing and combining in editing. Not a good test but the point it illustrates is the fall off at edges of CU lens which may or maynot be a factor with an object centre frame as opposed to flat object here.

http://i58.tinypic.com/nr173p.jpg

Previously I posted a couple of shots using my usual 2d [500mm] and the new 4d [250mm] CU lens

2d.....http://i60.tinypic.com/2nw3e3c.jpg

4d.....http://i61.tinypic.com/ay0un9.jpg Bigger and BA :(

Solatges,

I use a 105 mm 1:1 macro and a set of 3 Kenko tubes giving a max extension if all used together of 68mm. From memory this gives approx 1.8:1 magnification on my crop frame camera (I never remember the formulae) and would be slightly greater for a 90mm FL lens.

I'll look out the exact figures I have from some tests I have done and post the info for you.

Grahame

Trouble is I fear Grahame that he maybe has the wrong camera to do this ... you have Canikon for which lots of stuff is made. If he is prepared to live with the less 'auto' set-up and can focus and then close aperture satisfactorilly the option of plain tubes [ non-auto] is a considerable cost saving. AF can be a drawback with macro and manual using a pre-set focus is often the way to get what you want as the point of focus ... aperture control is the chief consideration and my Pentax lenses all have the A-M slider to focus wide open and then close to required f/stop for the shot.

Since he wants to go close there is the other option with Pentax bodies of working with M42 mount things like my Bellows so long as a simple conversion of female M42 to Male Vivitar is available for the front end. [SRB-Griturn.com may have what he needs from the UK]. My bellows gives me 120mm extension :)

I used to be Pentax in film days but they were slow in coming out with digital and I had choosen bridge cameras instead of DSLR by then. :)

EDIT ....just read #3 and rest assured extension tubes work just the same with all focal lengths but you just need more extension with the longer lens This was my rig when I had a DSLR and my 135mm lens with bellows and ext tubes kept me back from the subject as photo illustrates :)
http://i59.tinypic.com/289hope.jpg
But despite what I have said before there is the option of the 70c CU lens [ plastic from discount store ...
http://i62.tinypic.com/2uxxsmp.jpg

Soltages,

With a set of Kenko extension tubes totalling 68mm extension on a 1:1 105mm used on a 23.6mm width sensor you can fill the frame with 12mm, basically 2:1.

Just took this as I could not find my figures, ignore the poor quality.

http://i57.tinypic.com/rau9hf.jpg

The problem as John points out is that the Kenkos with the full contacts are not available for Pentax.

But Vivitar make a set AT-23 which appear to have the same features as the Kenkos that I assume would fit your Vivitar lens and fit to your adaptor? I got the info from here http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/1...-tubes-k5.html
the pentax forum.

Grahame

Woaw! Soooo much help down there!

Actually, I am working in full manual mode (focus, aperture, speed, iso). My camera is not even able to know which is the lens focal... And I am fine this way.

Is light a real issue with extension tubes? Will the light drop be such that I won't be able to see where I am focusing anymore?

Though, I don't have AF nor Aperture control with my antic Vivitar...

Thanks a lot for your knowledge and advices!

To #8 ... if the lens is an antique then surely it has a ring to adjust aperture :) The camera cannot do it but you can "Man'ually :)
I only use AF because I am lazy and in pre-digital times I always manually focused by pre-setting the focus and then moving camera in and out to find focus on the screen [ easier I know with a FF film camera but possible if the camera has 'live view' on its LCD???] A monopod makes this easier while providing some support.
The 70c magnifying glass taped to the lens is worth playing with ... one photographer confounded the experts with a series of shots taken with similar gear. It should not be posssible but he did it.

of course with everything on the borderline it helps if you are reasonably competant with a good editing programme.

Solatges,

I have had absolutely no concern or even noticed a light drop when using all three tubes and I'm basing that on looking through the viewfinder.

I'm sure there will be a formulae somewhere that proves it does reduce.

Grahame your clever camera compensates :) Ah Yes Nikon of course read about them .....
I cannot be bothered to find the formulae but I know when you at at 'double extension' [ that is 90mm with our freind's lens**] the aperture is letting in a quarter of the light it lets in at infinity focus setting. So f/8 effectively is an f/16 aperture ... BUT .... the wonderful AE compensates* and saves us having to use the maths as when I started in photography [c.1952 ] .... YEAH I'm an OLD B.... :)

* You just have to keep an eye on the shutter speed doesn't get too long for hand holding which is a reason why people use flash which nicely gets stronger to compensate for the smaller effective aperture as you get the flash closer to the subject as Grahame has demonstrated his rig in recent months.

** or it would if it was a 'simple lens' but it likely has built in focusing so requires less extension to achieve 1:1 or DE.

Solatges...I am still learning macro myself and am not really satisfied with any of my shots yet, but I would like to welcome you to this forum. Enjoy our company and do please try to look at other postings and respond to it in some way so we might feel comfortable with you too...

Sure, I will as far as I can.

I bought the stronger Canon achromatic close up lens recently and sent it back to the people I bought it off. Talking to then later as I visit them from time to time one of the sales person informed me that he thought that it wasn't possible to buy them of Canon but he would try if I wanted. Makes me wonder where they came from.

Results were poor.This could be down to 2 things. Lens not good enough or the close up lens itself. The lens is fine with a Sigma achromatic close up lens on which I would estimate is a bit less than 2 dioptres.

What a number of people do to get past 90-100mm is fit a teleconverter and also sometimes an extension tube as well. I've done this with a 100mm Sigma macro lens. With 1.4x I can't really see any degradation of the image. With a 2x I can. I'm currently shooting M 4/3 and seem to have problems when ever I add an extension tube so have more or less given up on that. I'm not sure why but AF for instant more or less stops functioning as it should. The other problem is that these restrict the focus range. The teleconverter doesn't and that can be handy at times.

I've also taken a lot of macro shots with a 75-300mm zoom lens on M 4/3 fitted with an achromatic close up lens. I can see degradation at the longer end of the zoom range say 250mm plus. I get great working distances and the zoom feature sets the magnification ratio. The drop off is probably down to the zoom lens as like most it does fall off at the long end. How usable it is depends on the final image size.

Forgot to add that there is plenty of information on macro photography on CinC's tutorial pages that are off the home page. This includes calculators in some cases to show what attachments can do. From memory these are based on initial,magnification. If not available it's easy to photograph a rule and relate the results to the sensor size.

On extension tube and for that matter teleconverters the reason for the light level drop off is simple. The image coming out of the back of the lens is expanded so the light level falls proportionally.

John
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Quote:

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Is light a real issue with extension tubes? Will the light drop be such that I won't be able to see where I am focusing anymore?

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Yes, light will decrease. Adding a fill set of 68mm Kenko tubes to your 90mm lens will decrease light by roughly two stops.

The reason is simple geometry. At any given level of illumination, any give area of the subject will reflect a certain amount of light. When you add tubes, you increase magnification by reducing the size of the area on the subject that maps to the total area of the sensor, so you are reducing the amount of light reaching the sensor.

I just tested this out with the closest lens I have, which is a 100mm macro. The effect of adding 68mm of extension was indeed roughly 2 stops.

The solution is simply more light. Outdoors, you should still be able to focus manually. Indoors, I use halogen lamps for macro.

Apart from the issue of electrical connections with your particular body, I think the best way to increase magnification when you are starting with a macro lens is extension tubes or (equivalently) a bellows.

Some time back I was going to extremes (small watch parts) and bought tubes, CU filter, and a Raynox DCR-250 (2.5x) to compare on a Sigma 70mm macro lens.

The DCR-250 was a clear winner for my purposes.

http://www.cameratips.com/recommenda...raynox-dcr-250
.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xpatUSA

Some time back I was going to extremes (small watch parts) and bought tubes, CU filter, and a Raynox DCR-250 (2.5x) to compare on a Sigma 70mm macro lens.

The DCR-250 was a clear winner for my purposes.

http://www.cameratips.com/recommenda...raynox-dcr-250
.

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Actually Ted I'm inclined to feel that my 75-300 plus close up is better than my Sigma 100mm macro lens. Hard call on the Olympus 60mm macro but the working distance is so small. The close up lens was bought to try. A Sigma one that they used to make to go with one of their zoom lenses. They crop up on ebay every now and again. This one is a 55mm fitting. Another smaller one is less powerful. If coated it's BBAR. Unusual for Sigma.

The dsr-250 is quoted as being 8 dioptre. Sounds a little strong to me. Even the dsr-150 is 4.8. I posted a link recently that showed some high powered microphotography using these on a bridge camera on a home made macro rail for taking shots for stacking.

I've just bought a 150 off amazon uk - discontinued by manufacturer so for the UK a little cheaper than usual. Something to play with when it's wet cold and miserable.

John
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First-off. I will agree that the Vivitar Series One, 90mm f/2.5 macro lens is one of the sharpest lenses that I have ever owned and I suspect at least as sharp as many of today's DSLR macro lenses. It is far better than the Vivitar 90mm f/2.8 macro lens which was available in the same mounts. I am sorry that I sold my Vivitar Series One when I got rid of my Pentax ME and MX film cameras.

It appears that some of the above discussions are using terms interchangeably when they are actually talking about two different items:

1. Close-up filter such as the Canon 500D and other less expensive c/u filters. The advantage of the C/U filter is that is screws on the front of the lens and is very quick to mount. While the Canon model provides very good image quality, I am not absolutely sure that it is up to the quality of your bare Series One Macro lens. There are other less expensive to downright cheap close-up lenses available on the market which will degrade your imagery to one degree or another. If you are interested in only occasional macro work or when traveling, the close-up lens is a decent solution to getting a higher ratio than 1:1 with your macro lens or just getting closer with normal lenses. I don't usually carry a macro lens on my travels but will slip a close-up lens in my kit just in case I want a close-up image...

2. Extension Tubes. These have no optical elements and simply are a way to extend the distance between the optical center of your lens and the sensor, in order to allow the lens to focus at a closer lens to subject distance. Having no optical elements, there "should" be no difference in image quality between the most expensive and least expensive extension tubes. However, there is one glaring difference! Many of the "el-cheapo" adapter rings have no electrical connection between the lens and the camera. It is difficult, if not impossible to shoot with this type of tube and stop down beyond the maximum aperture. Since most macro work is done at smaller apertures, these cheap tubes are almost worthless. Some photographers have "jury-rigged" ways to stop down the lens when using tubes without electrical connections but, I would not consider this type of tube.

The Canon OEM extension tubes are quite expensive but, there are other very good brands such as Kenko which can be had at a lower cost...

I have an older Tamron 90mm f/2.8 AF SP macro lens along with a single Kenko extension tube. I am planning to use the macro lens along with my Canon 1.4x TC (needs at least one extension tube to allow the lens and TC to mesh) but, I have not gotten around to doing this since I have been very busy with dog rescue. I don't know what image ratio to expect with this combination or if the combination will even produce decent results.

BTW: For extreme close up shooting, using an old manual focus lens in front of your normal lens combined with a reverse mounting ring can work quite well at a very low price. It doesn't matter what brand lens you use because it is attached to the camera via the reverse ring. The old style lenses with f/stop rings work best. A shorter focal length will provide greater magnification when using a reverse ring. Do a YouTube search for reverse lens mount macro photography... https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...o+photography+

FINALLY: when we speak of image ratio (ratio of the image size to subject size) we are talking about the image size on the sensor. Since no one (that I know of) displays their images at the sensor size (imagine displaying a 24mm x 36mm image!) the image ratio in the final size image is always greater than the native image ratio in the sensor.

Allow me to preference this by saying that...I only know Canon! :D

I use a 180 macro...sometimes, with Kenko extension tubes and sometimes using Canon's 2X teleconverter added into the equation, successfully I might add. There is some shadowing at the corners from the tubes that is easily curable in RAW processors. Needless to say that it is a setup that requires a tripod and manual focusing, I use a tethered scenario with computer controls. Additionally, I would suggest a brace of some kind to aid in lens support due to the length of the long set-up. Something like this...

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l...oting-cart.jpg

We all have different types of tripods...right? :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chauncey

Allow me to preference this by saying that...I only know Canon! :D

I use a 180 macro...sometimes, with Kenko extension tubes and sometimes using Canon's 2X teleconverter added into the equation, successfully I might add. There is some shadowing at the corners from the tubes that is easily curable in RAW processors. Needless to say that it is a setup that requires a tripod and manual focusing, I use a tethered scenario with computer controls. Additionally, I would suggest a brace of some kind to aid in lens support due to the length of the long set-up. Something like this...

We all have different types of tripods...right? :D

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William,

Out of curiosity what is the maximum magnification you can achieve with that rig?

You got me curious Grahame so I took a shot as close as I could achieve focus...you do the math. :D
36mm sensor, 68 mm in ext. tubes and a 2X TC on my 180 macro. Uncropped...1 mm hash marks!
Looks like the ruler was tilted just a bit.

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l...mpexttubes.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chauncey

You got me curious Grahame so I took a shot as close as I could achieve focus...you do the math. :D
36mm sensor, 68 mm in ext. tubes and a 2X TC on my 180 macro. Uncropped...1 mm hash marks!
Looks like the ruler was tilted just a bit.

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I don't like maths William but because this is an easy one here's the explanation;

On your 36mm width sensor you recorded a ruler length of 12mm at closest focus distance possible.

Therefore, the maximum magnification ratio of this rig is 3:1 (36/12 = 3)

Note, no calculators were used for determining this, not all maths is difficult:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jcuknz

Grahame your clever camera compensates :) Ah Yes Nikon of course read about them .....
I cannot be bothered to find the formulae but I know when you at at 'double extension' [ that is 90mm with our freind's lens**] the aperture is letting in a quarter of the light it lets in at infinity focus setting. So f/8 effectively is an f/16 aperture ... BUT .... the wonderful AE compensates* and saves us having to use the maths as when I started in photography [c.1952 ] .... YEAH I'm an OLD B.... :)

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John,

When I replied to Solatge's question;

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hsolatges

Will the light drop be such that I won't be able to see where I am focusing anymore?

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It was to do with the ability to 'see where I am focusing', not how the exposure is affected.

I have often used this rig;

http://i59.tinypic.com/2vbv9er.jpg

which consists of 3 x extension tubes (68mm) with a 1:1 105mm macro that is fully manual and the reason for that is because I stripped all the electronics out of it.

Adding the tubes does not impair my ability to focus whether manually or as is most often done by moving physically back and forth.

Whilst these tubes have the electrical contact function (that serves no purpose on this rig) the mechanical function maintains the lens aperture wide open until such time the shutter is pressed on this rig, the aperture then changing to what is set on the lens.

Even if I was to stop down to say f/11 using the preview button giving a very noticeable decrease in light in the viewfinder if the subject is reasonably lit I have no problems focusing.

Grahame

One of the 'fun' things which I experienced awhile back when using my Oly Pen with M42 adaptor and my 50mm Pentax lens was how the depth of field suddenly appeared while there was no change in brightness [ other than a very slight delay due to the refresh rate ] when I used the A-M slider to change from f/1.4 to f/16 ... such is how EVFs work :)

The point in answering the question is that there is obviously a light drop at double extension of two stops, less at less magnification and more at greater magnification, and the give away in your answer to me is ' is reasonably lit ' .... Depending on the subject and lighting focusing will be easy or not, just part of doing it and nothing to put one off the idea.

Of course if you can tolerate the defects of a CU lens as I illustrated you will find that even quite complicated adaptors only 'consume' a third of a stop in a matching rig, in a badly matched rig as much as 5/3 stops.
[ note ... I have one which depending on which camera it is being used on behaves to those figures ]

Photography is often a case of 'swings and roundabouts' and you make your choices accordingly.

Woaw I couldn't imagine that you all would give me so much help, pictures to illustrate and math to demonstrate! That is amazing. Thanks!

So if I do some kind of synthesis of all of this,
- Extension tubes are definitely a solution. Because I don't have AF nor Aperture control, non-auto tubes are ok;
- I really like the Raynox system, plus it is cheap on Amazon.jp. I think I will try it, in its 150 version. I will take a look at John's pictures post;
- I can not afford a TC right now as I only found one, auto & made by Pentax, which is too expensive (400 €). Maybe I should dig a bit more in that direction because I don't really need AF, just a K-mount TC;
- I have heard about inverse ring system. I will read more about this cause I know the benefit depends which focal you use. I got a Sigma 17-70mm but whith no aperture ring, and a Pentax 50mm f1.4 whith one. I don't know yet if there is a front/rear ring diameter issue... but it sounds good;
- As far as this discussion goes, UC filters don't seem quiet interesting, even the most expensive ones.

There might be an issue with the focus range: with the 1:1 adaptator, I already lost the infinite focus. I have to get my hand on the lens's manual to get right numbers, but the focus range is really tiny. If it is shortened with extension tubes, I am worried it becomes quiet difficult to shoot any animal.

Though I think I will try ext. tubes and DCR-150 ring.

I came back to refer you to my post #30 of the thread where Nicola is asking about a macro camera but to answer your interest about using the Pentax 50 on the end of the 90mm ... what you are doing is adding a 20 dioptre CU lens and you can see the result just by holding the 50 in front of the 90 [ carefully to avoid touching glass to glass ]
The Raynox 150 sounds like a 6,6 dioptre CU lens and I have my doubts about it being a good match from what I have seen of them. It will work but likely will cause vignetting and serious light loss ... but they are popular and good quality. The crux is if the camera lens has a narrow enough angle of view to see through the Raynox ... what works with a 430mm lens may not with a 90mm .... I have a Raynox 2020 Telephoto adaptor which works quite well at full 430mm zoom but zoom back even a touch and it starts to vignette, whereas my Olympus TCON x1.7 doesn't vignette until nearly half way back the zoom. Then when the 2020 was tried on my Tokina f/4 90-230 zoom [ using my DSLR ] I lost two stops of light just as if I was using a x2 tele- converter, so I gave up the idea :) The front element of the Tokina is much bigger than the rear element of the 2020 ... which to my empiracle thinking is the crux of adding things to lenses.
http://i62.tinypic.com/r86lps.jpgThat was my 50mm Pentax which might be similar to what you get with the 90mm and 50 acting as a 20 dioptre.

If you have or can pick up a cheap magnifying glass it would be worth the experiment of putting it on front of the 90mm to see what you get ... mine usually lives in my workshop and cost me 70 cents at a discount store ... it is plastic of course.

Ok, so I have found some Pentax's extension tubes (30535) at a good price (second hand on Amazon.jp). I will try these as it looks like a good way to do what I want to do. I have found a nice bellows on ebay, but shipping should have been more difficult than a Amazon.jp purchase. Though it looks nice.

I'll post valuable pictures as soon as I will have some.

Thanks for your help everyone!
Have a nice day!

There seem to some adverse comments about the Raynox DCR-xxx models. Just to keep a balance here's a very close shot of a badly printed target. Sigma SD14 + Sigma EX DG 70mm macro + Raynox DCR-250:

http://i60.tinypic.com/119xnvq.jpg

Image down-sampled 50%. No vignetting, perhaps because of the 1.7 sensor crop factor and the full frame lens. Magnification about 1:1.75. The square is about 2mm wide on the target.

I find the Raynox satisfactory for most purposes. This isn't 1:1 but still pretty close. The seeds are bermuda grass.

https://birdsnbugs.files.wordpress.c...0272acr107.jpg

I have been tempted to buy one of those cameras Brian several times but the controls put me off and ideally I would want a longer lens. Some one posted a "wasp" shot taken with one using an old Leica achromatic close up lens. It was pretty good but may have had a lot of work done on it.

People often mention extension tubes but my experiences on M 4/3 is that an achromatic close up lens can give better results. Having said that though I am so impressed with an early Sigma achromatic one that I bought one by Canon - hopeless. It seems they may not actually make them according to the dealer.

I bought the less powerful clip on one by Raynox but haven't taken any shots with it yet. Visually checking it on a 14-150mm lens which already will focus fairly closely it may be too powerful for general hand held use at 150mm. :) I'd rather crop than try and use sub 1:1 or even 1:1 for that matter so generally choose a ratio that shows the detail that is there and little more. Results have improved as I have taken more. It's a case of judging how big they need to be in the viewfinder.

Raynox. It took me a few seconds to find this page There are probably many others.

http://photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25371

Follow the the flickr link and the exif's can be viewed which will show what lenses were used. Obviously pretty skilled at PP which always leaves a question.

John
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I really like the Nikon V1 for a lot of reasons and closeup work is a big part of it. I've used it with the FT-1 Adapter to shoot with the 105mm F2.8 Micro-Nikkor and with the 55-2oomm VR kit lens. I also use a couple of old Leitz ELPRO achromats on the kit lenses.

Here is a Hairy Maggot Blowfly with the 30-110mm and a Leitz ELPRO VIa.

https://birdsnbugs.files.wordpress.c...8889acr107.jpg

And here a few ants ready for flight.

https://birdsnbugs.files.wordpress.c..._2856cr107.jpg

If you go to my blog and enter leitz or raynox into the search box you will find shots where I have used them since they don't show up in EXIF.

A word of warning. I am not a real naturalist or optical scientist. My blog is as I see the world and may well have misidentifications and unscientific tests.

Nice Blog Brian. Smaller sensors for macro interest me - less magnification and hence more depth of field. Also in the case of m 4/3 for instance the manufacturers need to produce decent glass if they are to be taken seriously. None of this using full frame lenses on crop bodies. Nikon do seem to have taken advantage of the size of the Nikon 1 lenses illustrated by showing 60 lp/mm contrast graphs. It's an interesting idea. I suspect if they ever do a macro lens for it just like Olympus and even shorter on Panasonic they will do a relatively shorter focal length lens when really longer than even 100mm tends to be easier to use. For me anyway. Maybe my height or where I tend to find insects.

This is one of my better ones. Used the Olympus 75-300mm at 194mm with a Sigma achromatic close up lens on it. Bought cheaply off ebay as I wasn't sure how it would work out.

http://i61.tinypic.com/2rhv49v.jpg

I could have gone up to maybe 250mm without any really noticeable deterioration. Next summer I am going add manual focus assist in some cases. This year I concentrated on using AF. It can be done with practice.

This is a true sooc 100% crop. All camera features off and not even any sharpening. I've taken several shots with these cameras that loose detail on reduction.

http://i60.tinypic.com/2192vfc.jpg

John
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Quote:

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Originally Posted by ajohnw

Nice Blog Brian. Smaller sensors for macro interest me - less magnification and hence more depth of field. Also in the case of m 4/3 for instance the manufacturers need to produce decent glass if they are to be taken seriously. None of this using full frame lenses on crop bodies.
John
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Very nice fly shots John, impressive DOF!

You mentioned a wasp shot earlier. Probably wasn't this but it does illustrate m43 work, in this case hand-held on a wobbly wooden step-ladder in a shed using in-camera flash and not wishing to stay that close for too long, eh, ;)

http://i59.tinypic.com/351ybnr.jpg

Again, I'm pushing how good the Panasonic Leica f/2.8 45mm macro-Elmarit lens is for such work, with it's built-in OIS system. 90mm 'equivalent focal length' of course.

I haven't used the Olympus 60mm macro lens much since I bought the sigma close up lens. Here's one that gives some idea. Slight DOF problem. Typical UK 15mm or so buttercup. This one was taken at something a little over 2:1. It will get down to 1:1. Difference really over the zoom lens is a much shorter working distance.

http://i60.tinypic.com/6fs3uu.jpg

I've only taken macro hand held so far.

Checking - More towards 1:4 than 1:2 making the butterfly around 15mm.

There is a 100% res crop here

http://www.23hq.com/ajohnw/photo/16675938/original

John
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I find reverse mounting one lens on the front of another works well for me.

This was a Hellios 58mm reverse mounted on the front of a Hellios 135mm, both M42 fit.

Ballpoint pen.


https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7228/...72584f0e_o.jpg2x Helios stacked by killwilly, on Flickr

Reversing lenses is interesting. The basic idea is that the rear end of a lens is "computed" to work over short distances and the front at longer ones via the focus. Taking an extreme example, high mag via bellows it will generally give better results using the lens the wrong way round but the focus setting might benefit from some playing around. It can also give better results when a reversal ring is used and the lens is mounted directly on the camera. A somewhat closely guarder secret is that on bellows certain wide angle lenses can work out rather well used like this.

When 2 lenses are stacked, the front one reversed both in principle should be focused on infinity. The distance from the flange to the subject on the front lens will then be the same as it is from the sensor/film when it's used in the normal way in a camera. In practice some messing about with both lenses focuses may work out better.

If some want amazing magnification and detail buy a low mag Nikon CF plan infinite tube microscope objective and fix it to the front of a 200mm telephoto. Lots of the highly detailed stacked insect shots about on the web have been taken like this but it can take rather a lot of shots to stack as the depth of field is so low. It's also possible to use the none infinite tube versions of these to directly project onto a sensor. The CF aspect, colour free is important as a lot of the correction in microscope objectives is often done in the eyepieces or via a photo eyepiece. Olympus also make similar objectives but their terminology is different and the infinite tube ones may need a different telephoto setting.

John
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Here is a blog writeup of mine on reversing lenses.

When I'm playing with closeup setups I use an old architects ruler as a subject.

Here is the result of using an old 135mm lens on the body with an 18-55mm zoom at 18mm.

https://birdsnbugs.files.wordpress.c.../dsc_8111a.jpg

The E is reversed because I had to flip the ruler to get close enough to it to get it in focus. Here is the original word https://birdsnbugs.files.wordpress.c...ormcf_8105.jpg using the 18-55mm at a normal 55mm.

Since Bill has not replied to your question Stagecoach I would remind you of something you probably already know :)
I wouldn't be suprised if he barely got double extension or 1:1 becuase when you use a long lens you need more extension than a short one does .... the rig looks impressive [ as my 'jack-hammer' photo does ] but it doesn't get you 'that much' greater magnification.

http://i61.tinypic.com/ims8k0.jpg

The way to get magnification is to use a shorter lens as when I fitted a 25mm lens to my bellows and got 4mm of a ruler filling the 36mm wide gate of my SLR .... I make that 9:1 but will not argue if it is not :)

http://i61.tinypic.com/2ceq7m8.jpg

The main problem with 'extension' is that it gets you very close to the subject, particularly with short lenses whereas with a longer lens one is overcoming its inability to focus close and works from a 'reasonable' distance from the subject [ with my bridge camera and its 430mm lens a 2 dioptre CU lens has me about 13 inches from the subject ]

Adding a 50mm prime lens to the camera lens [ reverse mounting etc ] is adding a 20 dioptre CU lens [ 1000/50 = 20 ] and got me this using the 280mm lens ... but I was very close.

http://i61.tinypic.com/oqxf6w.jpg

My recent 'play' with my new extension tubes [10 and 16mm] with my 14-140 zoom got me some suprising results in that I didn't get that much magnificaaation but had to be way back to get focus ....I attribute this to a zoom lens basically being a prime with adaptor lens but do not know enough about optics to work it out what was happening :)

I really admire people who use these things to get actual subjects rather than just rulers and clothespegs as I do :)

Using a 135mm lens reversed is 1000/135=7.4 dioptre CU lens

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jcuknz

I really admire people who use these things to get actual subjects rather than just rulers and clothespegs as I do :)

Using a 135mm lens reversed is 1000/135=7.4 dioptre CU lens

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John,

Perhaps what would be a real deal breaker would be to run a competition as follows;

a) Produce an image that shows the ball on the end of a ball point pen specifically to show the area at the interface of ball and pen. (the manufacturer needs this for his advertising blurb)

b) The image to be taken with a piece of A4 copy paper as the background.

c) The image to be uploaded for display here at CiC at 1200 px width.

d) THE IMAGE MUST NOT BE CROPPED

e) PP is acceptable (but note d) above.

That will sort the men from the boys :D

Grahame