G1 and Macro

[turbines]

FWIW I contacted Digitalrev and had a lengthy discussion regarding the No.3 AC Close Up filter I ordered. I asked them to tell me specifically if the item detailed in my order confirmation was, in fact, the Kenko AC No.3 2 element achromat close up lens. In the end I did not get a satisfactory answer. After I receive the item I will follow up with another post. I guess it's possible that the support person I discussed this with was not familiar with the differences in these lenses.

Today I received an email from Digitalrev.com stating that the Kenko AC close up lens was not in stock and that they did not know when it would be in stock. I have requested a refund.

 

[deckitout]

Turbines
What size did you order

 

[turbines]

52mm

 

[Tesselator]

I did a little research for you and these are also Achromatic designs:

1. http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-48mm-450-...era_Filters&hash=item1e5ec06ccc#ht_500wt_1156
2. http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-Original-...mera_Filters&hash=item58877f5ed5#ht_577wt_907
3. http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-58mm-Clos...ccessories&hash=item45f8176ecb#ht_3708wt_1141
4. http://cgi.ebay.com/NO-2-NIKON-CLOS...era_Lenses&hash=item336434cecb#ht_1809wt_1141

I'll be posting that magnification and WD demo/tut you asked for (in PM) in a few minutes from now as well.

 

[Tesselator]

Here's the demonstration/tutorial thing we talked about in PM. Here the images in order, show the scaled uncropped frame, a 100% crop, and the lens setup that took the image. I went through these really fast and only took one image each so some may be a tad OOF (for macro, focus bracketing is usually called for). I also did them all on my wobbly desktop so there is the occasional incurred motion blur is some of them. Anyway, this is mostly about what magnification you may expect from what kind of setup so don't place too much credence on the IQ of these particular samples. For highly magnified photography (over 2X) stacking is a very common technique and the result of employing it is clearer cleaner images. None of these were stacked or anything so the 100% crop images show that pasty over magnified look. Stacking and oversampling is a nice cure for that and pretty easy to accomplish.

 

[Tesselator]

 

[Tesselator]

The ruler in some of the shots shows the working distance (WD) which is the distance from the front of the lens to the in-focus portion of the subject. Where there is no ruler we're down to about 5cm or less. For the highest magnified images the WD was only a few millimeters. The lens setup images also shot the aperture that was used for each of the shots. The shots of the bellows show the exact position the bellows was in for the respective images. Notice also that there is no significant increase in magnification between the last two images. Even though the later additionally uses a #10 close-up filter. This is because as mentioned earlier, that these lens filters only correct for close focusing and actually do no magnify anything. Since the extension of the bellows already allows for a WD of about 5mm ~ 10mm the #10 filter has no affect. This answers the question about the usefulness of using such filter on a lens that already has macro capabilities. If the WD of filter specification is less than the macro lens alone then it will allow higher mags - if not then not. All images were taken at the closest possible distance with the lens backed off ever so slightly from MFD. Focused at infinity the distance can be increased somewhat and the magnification therefor will also be less.

Oh, and the lens used here is the Zeiss/Jena Biotar 50/2.0. It has very reasonable micro-contrast and is pretty good for this sort of thing. It's available for cheap too! Between $75 and $150 with no scratches on the glass, and no mold - though a lens this age will likely have some internal dust.

 

[deckitout]

Wow, impressive.
Huge thanks for taking the time to do this, it has helped me understand things and given a much clearer perspective.

 

[Tesselator]

Sure, no problem. Glad it helped.

 

[gardenersassistant]

Thanks again for feedback, if anyone has samples of images with these it would be most welcome

Well all photos taken from 2009 are with my Panasonic FZ50 and various closeup lenses.... you can find some at
http://www.staffanmalmberg.se/Insects-and-Spiders

Oh! Superb! What a feast. Excellent examples of the use of close-up lenses. :thumbs:



At http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/ there is quite a lot of stuff like this, with most of the insects and spiders and many of the flora images using the Raynox 150 (+4.5) and 250 (+8) and Canon 500D (+2) close-up lenses (all achromats):


0327 5 2010_06_11 IMG_4142 PS1a CrExDf7x30LebSa900hSS0.3x40 SS0.3x89 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


0330 6 2010_04_07 IMG_4092 PS1 ClCrDf10x30Cu1024wSS69x0.3 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

My aim for 2011 is to buy the GH2 and use the 100-300 mm and the closeup lenses. Maybe I will even buy the 45 mm macro.

Similar thinking here, although probably the 45-200 rather than the 100-300. For me too, the 45mm is a "maybe". I want to move on from the SX10is, for improved IQ, a wider range of usable ISOs and better flash control.

I believe the Raynox 150 on the 45-200 should get me to roughly the same magnification as the 45mm, so if I got the 45mm I would probably retire the Canon 500D. I might still use the Raynox 150 sometimes for its larger working distance than the 45mm as it approaches 1:1. The Raynox 250 would presumably still be needed to get closer in (no extension tubes available for the GH2?). I might get a Raynox MSN202 (+25, working distance 32mm!) to get really close in.