Wednesday, November 08, 2006

this morning I got a call from adorama, because of my purchase from the day before. So after I talked with this guy for a while...

...it was a long talk...

....which ended in me cancelling my order. Because the lens which I wanted to buy needed a special adapter to work on my camera. I highly appreciate the call and will get the correct lens maybe later in time.

But I'm always get frustraded when I want to buy something and cant get it. So I ended up with buying a used manual lens and a reversing ring for 100$. The lens is a Nikkor 200m F/4 AI.
Means I need to focus/meter manual, which makes it perfect for my purpose, cause I can't use these features anyway on my camera with a reversed lens.

I also can use this lens as a normal lens, but not for snapshots, cause I need todo all the metering manual. So I spend more time with a picture which should result in better pictures.

Complete Macro Stuff I own so far:

  • BR-2A to mount a lens reversed to the camera
  • BR-3 to mount a filter on the reserved lens and mainly for protection of the rear element
  • Reversing 52mm adapter to mount 2 lenses together. You can use tape, but I'm afraid my lens falls of and for 9$ it should be ok.
  • 50mm F1.8 lens basically a portrait lens and reversed a nice macro with a very short working distance
  • 200mm F4 lens to play with and used for magnifications of 4:1
Stuff to buy in the future:
Now I just need to find some bugs to see if I can take pictures of them with this combination too see how it works.

what do you get with this combination
  • reversed 50mm gives you roughly 1x life size at F1.8 max
  • reversed 50mm on 200mm gives you 4x life size at F5.8 max ( F1.8 + F4 = F5.8)
  • reversed 50mm on 300mm gives you 6x life size at F7.2 max
the formula for reversed lenses is
magnification = main lens/reveresed lens
Another common problem is the more you read about the topic, the more you get frustrated. An example is this page which basically comes to the point:
A macro is a nice toy but each animal runs away or attacks if you get to close. So maybe skip the macro, get some extension tubes and a long prime lens 200mm+
Which results into

A standard set of extension tubes consists of
  • 12 mm
  • 20 mm
  • 36 mm
which can be combined. The formula is in this case
magnification = extension / focal length
This can now be combine with a reversed lens to get an even higher magnification, if your working distance is long enough. To get a longer working distance you can use
  • longer lens ( example 68mm extension/200mm = 0.34 (1/3 life size)
  • teleconverter
  • diopters
so basically extension tubes allow you to focus much closer with a long lens like 300mm, but you loose some light and the possibility to focus at infinity. It's also a hassle to work with them. On the other hand a new macro cost 500$ or a used Nikon 300m F/4 cost 500$ in good to excellent condition.
Which gives you way more possibilities. Not only macro (with extension tubes/reversed lens), but also wildlife and birds with a very good quality.

the disadvantages
  • macro lens
    • expensive
    • very special
    • very slow focus
  • reversed lens
    • very short working distance
    • no metering
    • no autofocus
  • teleconverter
    • loss in sharpness
    • maybe no metering
    • maybe no autofocus
  • diopters
    • loss in sharpness
  • extension tubes
    • light falloff
    • maybe no metering
    • maybe no autofocus
At least I have now enough toys and to learn for the next couple of month. A very nice article about what is possible can be found here
...life is a compromise...
...so take what you have and do this best with it...