New here!

[Steve Adamczyk]

Hello all. I'm new here and my main objective is to expand my knowledge of "getting up close and personal" with my little subjects. At present I use a Minolta Auto Bellows on my old Minolta X700 with a 100mm microscope lens.
I'm trying to find a way to adapt it to my Olympus E620.

[Chris S.]

Welcome aboard, Steve!

[Harald]

Hi there Steve,
Welcome to this great forum.
I´ve learned a lot from these great people...

Looking forward to see more posts from you
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Kind Regards
Harald

Lier Fotoklubb / NSFF
AFIAP / CPS
BGF / GMV
http://www.500px.com/blender11

[ChrisR]

Welcome Steve
I'm afraid you're just going to HAVE to tell us exactly what you mean by, "a 100mm microscope lens. "
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Chris R

[Olympusman]

Welcome aboard. Originally from Milwaukee myself.

Mike aka Olympusman
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Michael Reese Much FRMS EMS Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

[Beatsy]

Welcome to the group Steve. I presume you meant 100mm "macro" lens. The longest microscope lens I own is the 50x Mitutoyo M-Plan APO objective, and that's only 90mm, including the threads! I've come over all inadequate now...

[Troels]

Don't worry. There are lots of possibilities with your equipment.
Funny enough I also "converted" from Minolta X700 to Olympus E620 some years ago, just before Olympus shut down all further development of the E-system.

I have several of the adapters mentioned by Chris S. and have great experiences with using both my old manual Minolta bellows carrying a microscope objective and also a really nice 90 mm Vivitar macro lens for Minolta going all the way to 1:1 (17 mm field of view) giving a comfortable working distance.

Just one word of caution before you use the Minolta to Olympus adapter: All of the old automatic minolta lenses, and perhaps also the auto bellows, has a pin just inside the bayonet mount. It protudes into the camera house and is a mechanical coupling for the automatic diaphragm.

Even after mounting the thin Olympus adapter this pin protudes into the camera house. On some lenses this pin is so long that i prevents the lens from beeing placed correclty. And even worse: you risk damages on a shielding inside the camera house. So be cautious whwen mounting for the first time.

If you can feel that the lens can not easily be placed in close contact with the bayonet don't force it. Instead remove the lens and with a grinder or sanding paper shorten the pin by just ½ mm or so. Or perhaps it can be removed completely by unscreewing it.

Of course it is a pity that Olympus has abandonned the E-series and concentrated all efforts on the later micro four thirds. On the other hand it means that we can get some used E-equipment very cheap. I will strongly encourage you to keep an eye on the frequent offers on cheap or used examples of the 50mm f:2.0 olympus E macro lens and the corresponding automatic extender. It is not difficult to find this for 1/3 of the original list price or even cheaper. It is a wonderful lens both for field work and studio.

The E620 house has some nice features for macro:
Live view with enlargement for easier control of focus. The enlarged area can be moved around.
Shake prevention by delaying shutter after mirror flip-up. Important for high magnification with continous light.

On my Focus Stacking album on Flickr you can see some of my pictures taken with the E620 and different optics.

Good luck!
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Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
Visit my Flickr albums