HOW much?

[ChrisR]

With respect to true macro & bellows lenses, it seems they're all
1) hard to find, and
2) expensive.

SO when I find, something I have no idea whether it's a bargain or a hopelessly optimistic price.
EG
Olympus macro lenses, 20mm and 38mm, earlier style with RMS thread only, both f3.5 I think - (the later Olympus mount ones were faster). They aren't the very first so they're multicoated,
such as http://www.alanwood.net/photography/oly ... 20-35.html

These are up for sale in the UK at £300 each, about US$400 each.
I'm clueless.

How much would the Nikkor macro (bellows) lenses be? Google finds none and I haven't seen them on ebay.
And (shudder) the Ultra Micro Nikkors?

There's a Rokkor 25mm which gets a few mentions, some expensive Leitz lenses which really are too much, and I've read of a dusty Canon 35mm for 100 Euros.

Above 50mm or so gets easier to breathe, partly because of the plethora of enlarger lenses and common camera lenses. It's the little critters I'm wondering about.


I apologise if this has been covered, and I know any info will date, but there must be a gaggle of lusting snappers in similar distress.

[[Who?]]

ebay-wise (this is based on my experience)

the 25mm rokkor - one sold yesterday for £250

ultra micro nikkors = £££££ (one sold recently on ebay but i cant really remember how much)

macro-nikkors anywhere from £350-700 (depends on model and on how well noticed it is etc etc)

a olympus om (not rms) 38mm f2.8 bellows lens sold today on ebay for £370

and a om 20mm f2.0 sold a couple of months ago for £420 odd

Photars - depends on model - expect £300+

Luminars - again depends on model (a blue dot luminar i was watching sold for £800 odd although i think that might have been an exception)
i did once see a luminar 25mm go for £80 (and it was in good condition)

really it all depends on how many people have seen them

[rjlittlefield]

With respect to true macro & bellows lenses, it seems they're all
1) hard to find, and
2) expensive.

True, but not terribly relevant when you're just starting out.

It's the little critters I'm wondering about.

Below are a couple of test/demo images that you may find helpful.

The first image is a 5.2 mm x 3.5 mm chunk of moth wing, shot with an EL Nikkor 50 mm f/2.8 reversed on bellows. This is full frame, 4.4X onto the sensor.

The second image is a 2 mm x 1.3 mm crop of the same image.

I paid $31 for that EL Nikkor 50 mm f/2.8. It's not quite as high resolution as my Olympus bellows lenses, but it's completely adequate for use at this scale. If I want to go smaller, then I switch to my Nikon CF N Plan Achro 10X NA 0.30 microscope objective. That objective, which cost $100, will beat the socks off any bellows/macro lens at 10X and up on a DSLR.

Bottom line, you really don't need expensive lenses. What you do need is all the other stuff to wrap around good inexpensive lenses. By "all the other stuff" I mean lighting, focusing, computing, and most of all, patience and experience.

--Rik

Full frame, 5.2 mm x 3.5 mm. It looks a little "wiggly" because there's too much fine detail to fit neatly in this 800 pixel web-sized version.


2 mm x 1.3 mm crop.


Details: Canon 300D camera, EL Nikkor 50 mm f/2.8 at f/4, reversed on Olympus bellows, electronic flash, 32 frames stacked at 0.001".

[ChrisR]

Those are indeed interesting, as are 2 or 3 other comparisons on the site. One included a Mamiya standard 50/1.8, value approximately a button, which wasn't too bad .

One method on which I've not seen much discussion, is reversing common retrofocus prime lenses, say the range 20 to 35mm. ( Maybe even some of the zooms, from what Ken Rockwell and others indicate).
I'll state what I feel all readers will probably know, that this method gives you a quite reasonable working distance, particularly with the shorter ones, coompared with a standard (non retrofocus) lens design

My impression is of a somewhat curved field, though stacking would presumably reduce some of its effect.

Another cheapskate method is of course the one of reversing a shortie on the front of a longie. I've never really understood the point of the long one, if you have bellows. My only long prime is a 400, not appealing.

I wonder is anyone has done or seen comparisons?

[rjlittlefield]

The Mamiya test was mine. I've shot a lot of photos with that lens in years past, mostly because it was pretty good and it came with the camera.

Reversing a retrofocus wideangle will get you lots of magnification with good working distance. But that magnification will not necessarily turn into more detail visible on the subject. Unless the lens is very sharp to begin with, what you'll be getting is "empty magnification".

To put this in perspective, suppose you have a typical DSLR, say 10 MPixels on a 22 mm x 15 mm sensor. That turns out to be about 175 pixels per mm. Let's be generous and allocate 4 pixels per line pair. That gives you a good quality capture of 43 line pairs per mm at the sensor.

Now suppose you set up optics to give 5X magnification. That 43 line pairs per mm at the sensor corresponds to 215 line pairs per mm at the subject.

I can't remember the last time I saw a wideangle lens rated at 215 line pairs per mm, even at image center.

The point I'm making is that reversing a lens on bellows changes what the lens has to do. Normal camera lenses are designed to cover the whole sensor with an image that is adequately sharp everywhere and doesn't have to be very sharp anywhere. Reversed, at 5X, the lens only has to cover a field that is 1/5 as wide, but it has to be very sharp over that small field. The wider the angle of a lens, the more likely that its central performance has been compromised in order to get adequate corners.

From the standpoint of image quality, reversing a shortie in front of a longie has the advantage that the reversed lens is then being used at the focus distance it was designed for -- one FL away from the "rear" principal plane. On bellows, especially at low magnifications, the reversed lens is being used way outside its design space and will suffer from aberrations. On the flip side, many lens pairs do not play well together either. In addition to vignetting, you can get aberrations from the pair that don't appear in either lens alone. Ultimately it comes down to "try it and see".

I don't recall seeing any comparisons posted for retrofocus wideangles.

--Rik

[ChrisR]

Thanks again, Rik
I see. Hmmm.
For my box (D700) I get 155ish lpp/mm so I'm not being quite so demanding of the glass. I don't know what the figures are though for my lenses, which are all getting on a bit-
20/24/28/55 2.8, 35/2, 50 1.8.

When I get hold of a UMN 28 (I think that was it, on Fluor Doublet's stream) at 500 lpm(?) I'll do a test.
I've had an El Nik 50/2.8 since printing Cibachromes sometime last century, but I dont even know where the enlarger is now, let alone its bits. One just went on ebay for $10 or 15, but I'm never that lucky.
I need to do some basic test to see what I've got. Not sure how I'd best post results - I expect there's a sticky.

I've recently acquired a few odds and ends (one we'd better keep quiet about, eh?) including (still on ebay) a 31mm 5.6 Rodagon, which has no
iris, mount or threads available . (My nearly half price offer was accepted, by the way)
It's so slim at about 15mm that I thought of getting another to do stereos in one shot, but it would just get lost in a drawer.