Going beyond 90mm for Macrophotography

[chauncey]

You got me curious Grahame so I took a shot as close as I could achieve focus...you do the math.
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.

[Stagecoach]

You got me curious Grahame so I took a shot as close as I could achieve focus...you do the math.
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.

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

[Stagecoach]

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....

John,

When I replied to Solatge's question;

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

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;



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

[jcuknz]

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.

[hsolatges]

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.

[jcuknz]

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.
That 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.

[hsolatges]

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!

[xpatUSA]

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:



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.

[Saorsa]

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

[ajohnw]

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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[Saorsa]

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.



And here a few ants ready for flight.



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.

[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. 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.



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.



John
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[xpatUSA]

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,



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.

[ajohnw]

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.



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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[killwilly]

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.


2x Helios stacked by killwilly, on Flickr

[ajohnw]

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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[Saorsa]

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.



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 using the 18-55mm at a normal 55mm.

[jcuknz]

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.



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



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.



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

[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

[Stagecoach]

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

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

Grahame