Macro Photography suggestions.

[Abhik]

I use an Olympus E400 SLR camera. I want to shoot macro photos in affordable way! I am a fountain pen collector. So, want to shoot pen photos mostly.
Can you please suggest ways to do it? I have a Minolta macro lens AF(35mm camera lens). Can it used by any means?
thanks for reading and suggestions.
Abhik.

[Amberglass]

Hi Abhik and welcome,

I've discussed this subject with a couple of other Oly owners and here is what I found for them:

http://www.four-thirds.org/en/fourthirds/lense.html

Because of Olympus's unique 4/3's mounting, your Minolta will not work. Certain Minolta lenses will work on Sony's because they were bought out Konica Minolta's slr/dslr division, and they are no longer making cameras or lenses but do have support for their discontinued product line.

Unfortunately you're going to find that because of Olympus's and Sony's unique mountings, their lenses will cost a lot more than other name brands when it comes to faster apertures on certain primes and zoom (commonly used focal lengths) lenses.

[rpcrowe]

There are several alternatives which you might consider:

A true macro lens designed for the 4/3 system: http://cgi.ebay.com/Olympus-35mm-f3-...item4ced5d8f9c

The use of a converter which will allow a non-4/3 Oly macro lens to be mounted on your camera: http://www.four-thirds.org/en/fourth...sories.html#03

The use of an non-Oly converter which will allow macro lenses from other manufacturers to be mounted on your 4/3 camera.

The use of a macro extension tube, either an Oly manufactured model or a third party model: http://www.four-thirds.org/en/fourth...sories.html#03

Use of a close-up filter which is probably the least expensive alternative and which, if shot at around f/11 using a tripod or other such support, might just give enough quality for your needs. The close-up filter would depend on the filter size of your lens.

Finally: Unless you desire to isolate specific areas of fountain pens, many standard 4/3 lenses will provide an image ratio which would work quite well. I was perusing the lenses which appear to be available for 4/3 cameras and noticed that the 18-50mm f/2.8 Sigma (which is included on the Oly web site) gives an approximate 1:3 image ratio which should be good for all but the closest work on your pens.

[wjh31]

see also the thread on reversing lenses for some alternative techniques: reversed lens macro