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Best lens option for 1:1 macro photography on Arca Rm3di with IQ4 back?
- Thread starter bernardl
- Start date
dchew
Well-known member
Hi Bernard,
Not sure if it is "the best," but the sk 120M is the first one that comes to mind. You could probably find one in the Arca mount. Data sheet here: Schneider 120 Macro
I don't know if Arca makes a Hasselblad adapter like Alpa does? If so, maybe the legacy macro from Zeiss? @jng would know a lot more about those options.
Dave
Not sure if it is "the best," but the sk 120M is the first one that comes to mind. You could probably find one in the Arca mount. Data sheet here: Schneider 120 Macro
I don't know if Arca makes a Hasselblad adapter like Alpa does? If so, maybe the legacy macro from Zeiss? @jng would know a lot more about those options.
Dave
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Alkibiades
Well-known member
With real macro lenses you will be always on the right side, dont matter if schneider or rodenstock.
120 Macro from both, Schneider and Rodenstock are great, also the 5,6/80 mm apo digitar macro.
All of these lenses are cheap and unbeaten in macro use.
They are afcourse a lot of nice lenses like M-Componon that you can get very cheap and they are also great.
120 Macro from both, Schneider and Rodenstock are great, also the 5,6/80 mm apo digitar macro.
All of these lenses are cheap and unbeaten in macro use.
They are afcourse a lot of nice lenses like M-Componon that you can get very cheap and they are also great.
I use the Schneider 120M for film scanning use, but not on my RM3Di (I don't have it mounted in the R mount). Instead, I use it on an Arca Monolith. I would think that it would be tricky getting enough bellows extension with just the RM3Di, but I'm sure Arca would supply the lens with enough bellows to get to 1:1, or could sell a back "extension" to get there.
I'm sure any of the above mentioned lenses would be more than up to the task... the lens is not the weakest link in my "scanning" setup... backlight and copy stand are bigger factors in my (limited) experience.
I'm sure any of the above mentioned lenses would be more than up to the task... the lens is not the weakest link in my "scanning" setup... backlight and copy stand are bigger factors in my (limited) experience.
Shashin
Well-known member
I believe you can get a Pentax 645 and Hasselblad V lens bayonet adapter plate for that camera. I would look for a Pentax 645 120mm f/4 macro lens. It will reach 1:1 and is very sharp. Both the AF and manual focus versions are of high quality. Hasselblad also made a 120mm macro lens, but I have no experience with that.
rdeloe
Well-known member
I second the Pentax 645 120mm f/4 macro lens. It's an excellent performer.
The Schneider-Kreuznach Makro-Symmar 120mm f/5.6 is also a stellar lens. Robert O'Toole, who has evaluated more lenses for close-up performance than anyone I can think of, puts it at the very top. Here's the version in the industrial mount. He also has tests for other flavours, and for Apo-Digitar 120 versions. https://www.closeuphotography.com/schneider-makro-symmar-sr-120
The Schneider-Kreuznach Makro-Symmar 120mm f/5.6 is also a stellar lens. Robert O'Toole, who has evaluated more lenses for close-up performance than anyone I can think of, puts it at the very top. Here's the version in the industrial mount. He also has tests for other flavours, and for Apo-Digitar 120 versions. https://www.closeuphotography.com/schneider-makro-symmar-sr-120
darr
Well-known member
I use the Schneider MACRO-DIGITAR 120mm f5.6 lens in ALPA mount and another in 4x5 mount. In the ALPA mount it lives in my copy station for digitizing film and is an excellent tool for the job. In 4x5 mount, I use it with my Linhof for product shooting.
I also use the Hasselblad CFi 120 Macro lens for product shooting. It does well for film digitizing too, but since I have two copies of the SK 120 M, I retired the ALPA SK 120 M to the copy station (very sharp). Either 120 M lens is sharp, but on the copystand the SK 120 M is lighter and because of that, it is my preference. I do enjoy using the Hasselblad CFi 120 M for product shooting and use it a lot.
Here is a link to an article I wrote regarding digitizing film last year. You can see the Hasselblad CFi 120 M on the copy stand before I decided to permanently keep the ALPA SK 120 M there :
My preference is to always go lighter on a copy stand.
Best to you!
Darr
I also use the Hasselblad CFi 120 Macro lens for product shooting. It does well for film digitizing too, but since I have two copies of the SK 120 M, I retired the ALPA SK 120 M to the copy station (very sharp). Either 120 M lens is sharp, but on the copystand the SK 120 M is lighter and because of that, it is my preference. I do enjoy using the Hasselblad CFi 120 M for product shooting and use it a lot.
Here is a link to an article I wrote regarding digitizing film last year. You can see the Hasselblad CFi 120 M on the copy stand before I decided to permanently keep the ALPA SK 120 M there :
My preference is to always go lighter on a copy stand.
Best to you!
Darr
Christopher Campbell
New member
I also do film scanning with an Arca-Swiss camera, repurposing a 6x9 f-metric with an IQ3 100MP Trichromatic. As anyone knows who has done film digitizing to the highest standard, it's real work to clean, mount, position and capture film, and I have a considerable amount to do, so I put some significant time and money into designing and building a state of the art system that allows me to position the film plane to a precision of a single micron. I used 80/20 components to construct a wall-mounted column, a heavy and extremely stable leveling base, and a "cage" containing optical bench position equipment for holding and positioning the film. I saw the Rodenstock HR Digaron-S 4/100 lens in use at Digital Transitions, my Phase One dealer's office in New York, and that's the lens I ended up purchasing, as I don't want to do any of this digitizing work twice! The optical design of the lens is remarkable, including the floating element that one sets to the magnification in use, and although it was bit of a trick to have it mounted to an Arca-Swiss lensboard, I could not be happier with the results. Digitizing 35mm film, I'm working at a magnification of 1 : 1.34, which requires 20.7 cm between the camera standards, so it's a little hard to see how 1:1 could be done gracefully with the RM3Di in the field?
Note, 2021-08-19: I have corrected an error in this post. Typing too quickly, I mistakenly listed the Rodenstock HR Digaron-S 4/100 as my macro/film digitizing lens, when I meant to list the Rodenstock HR Digaron Macro 5.6/105, which is the one in the photo below. Information on that lens can be found here:
https://www.linhofstudio.com/produc...105mm-FLOAT-/HR_Digaron_Macro_5_6_105mm_FLOAT
Note, 2021-08-19: I have corrected an error in this post. Typing too quickly, I mistakenly listed the Rodenstock HR Digaron-S 4/100 as my macro/film digitizing lens, when I meant to list the Rodenstock HR Digaron Macro 5.6/105, which is the one in the photo below. Information on that lens can be found here:
https://www.linhofstudio.com/produc...105mm-FLOAT-/HR_Digaron_Macro_5_6_105mm_FLOAT
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Thanks a lot for the feedbacks! That's a very neart set up you have Christopher!
When mounting such a lens on the Rm3di a spacer tube is inserted between the rear of the camera and the digital back. I have such a set up already for a Rodenstock 150mm. The value compared to a rail camera is that it's more compact, lighter and there is no issue with standard parallelism.
What makes things even more complex here is that I ambition to stitch the 8x10 film...
I will probably set up with 0.5x enlargement ratio instead of 1 which will already result in a 1+ Gigapixel stitched file. Various feedbacks I have received elsewhere lead me to think that this is basically enough to outdo the best drumscan quality for 8x10.
The HR-Digaron-S 4/100 is an interesting option. I'll look into it.
When mounting such a lens on the Rm3di a spacer tube is inserted between the rear of the camera and the digital back. I have such a set up already for a Rodenstock 150mm. The value compared to a rail camera is that it's more compact, lighter and there is no issue with standard parallelism.
What makes things even more complex here is that I ambition to stitch the 8x10 film...
I will probably set up with 0.5x enlargement ratio instead of 1 which will already result in a 1+ Gigapixel stitched file. Various feedbacks I have received elsewhere lead me to think that this is basically enough to outdo the best drumscan quality for 8x10.The HR-Digaron-S 4/100 is an interesting option. I'll look into it.
Christopher Campbell
New member
Bernard,
Before I had my current set-up, I used Lenny Eiger (Petaluma, CA) when I needed the best possible drum scans of analog film. IIRC, Lenny felt that 8000 ppi was effectively the limit to extracting useful information from even the finest grain films, and interestingly enough, that is also the maximum resolution at which my Imacon 848 scans 35mm film. With my current Arca-Swiss/Rodenstock HR Digaron/Trichromatic set-up (christened, tongue-in-cheek, "Lux ex machina"), very precise film positioning allows me to use 11,530 pixels on the long dimension of the sensor for the image of an unmounted 35mm transparency. Since the Trichromatic sensor is 11,608 pixels wide, that's actually 99.3% of the sensor width, and an effective resolution of 8,138 pixels per inch.
I could, potentially, install the 50cm bellows in the f-metric, nearly double the magnification and digitize a 35mm transparency in two stitched sections, but so far I haven't felt the need, and I'm frankly doubtful that it would improve my results. I'm effectively imaging dye clouds, and I can already see every individual particle (at least I think I can!). Whether you capture a single frame or stitch, establishing nearly perfect parallelism is a critical and exacting task, and I will note that I use a Versalab Parallel laser and a 4-6λ first-surface mirror from Edmund Optics to do that job. 8x10 film at 8000 ppi, now that would be some file!
Before I had my current set-up, I used Lenny Eiger (Petaluma, CA) when I needed the best possible drum scans of analog film. IIRC, Lenny felt that 8000 ppi was effectively the limit to extracting useful information from even the finest grain films, and interestingly enough, that is also the maximum resolution at which my Imacon 848 scans 35mm film. With my current Arca-Swiss/Rodenstock HR Digaron/Trichromatic set-up (christened, tongue-in-cheek, "Lux ex machina"), very precise film positioning allows me to use 11,530 pixels on the long dimension of the sensor for the image of an unmounted 35mm transparency. Since the Trichromatic sensor is 11,608 pixels wide, that's actually 99.3% of the sensor width, and an effective resolution of 8,138 pixels per inch.
I could, potentially, install the 50cm bellows in the f-metric, nearly double the magnification and digitize a 35mm transparency in two stitched sections, but so far I haven't felt the need, and I'm frankly doubtful that it would improve my results. I'm effectively imaging dye clouds, and I can already see every individual particle (at least I think I can!). Whether you capture a single frame or stitch, establishing nearly perfect parallelism is a critical and exacting task, and I will note that I use a Versalab Parallel laser and a 4-6λ first-surface mirror from Edmund Optics to do that job. 8x10 film at 8000 ppi, now that would be some file!
Christopher Campbell
New member
Please note that I have corrected an error in my post from last evening. Typing too quickly, I mistakenly listed the Rodenstock HR Digaron-S 4/100 as my macro/film digitizing lens, when I meant to list the Rodenstock HR Digaron Macro 5.6/105. Information on that (utterly spectacular) lens can be found here:
https://www.linhofstudio.com/produc...105mm-FLOAT-/HR_Digaron_Macro_5_6_105mm_FLOAT
https://www.linhofstudio.com/produc...105mm-FLOAT-/HR_Digaron_Macro_5_6_105mm_FLOAT
