ok who's got the longest macro lens

[LordV]

Thought I was doing well with the lens in this thread http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...d.php?t=126107

but the description of the setup in this thread
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/334909
is mind boggling... 560mm of extension tubes
Brian V.

[Omri Alon]

WOW. I would wand to see an insect shot at that super CRAZY magnufucation. That is a f*cking microscope.

Brian, I thought your setup was a big gun, his setup is a TANK

WOW

[LordV]

Originally Posted by Omri Alon

WOW. I would wand to see an insect shot at that super CRAZY magnufucation. That is a f*cking microscope.

Brian, I thought your setup was a big gun, his setup is a TANK

WOW

Quite agree- amazed he gets any light down the barrel.
Brian V.

[mybitoftheplanet]

Originally Posted by LordV

Thought I was doing well with the lens in this thread http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...d.php?t=126107

but the description of the setup in this thread
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/334909
is mind boggling... 560mm of extension tubes
Brian V.

An interesting experiment, and a challenge to use successfully. At that magnification you need a very solid, vibration free mount with the object on a macro stage that is physically connected to the camera. If I'm doing extreme macro work in my house (wooden floors supported by joists). The Canon autobellows has a macro stage that helps in this regard - without it, I have to choose the moment when I press the shutter very carefully, even if I'm using a wireless remote!

I see that in that discussion someone suggests that he uses a 20mm macrophoto lens in his arrangement. Just for the sake of comparison, the picture below was taken with that lens, mounted on what amounts to a 223mm extension, giving a magnification at the sensor of 15:1. The eprom is an older generation model so that the components aren't quite as small. It is a full frame image with no sharpening. The scale was photographed with the same set-up and is cropped to show full frame width:





Even at 15:1 accurate focusing is a real challenge without a very stable platform. You only have to think about turning the dial on the focusing rail and you've missed it. For work like this I would like to be able to replace the fresnel focusing screen of the 20D with a matt one, as I was able to do with my T90.

Brian, looking at your 'duck tape' arrangement, have you tried using enlarger lenses. I picked up a nice Rodenstock Rodangon 28mm lens a few weeks ago, which, mounted in reverse on extension tubes gives me a range of magnifications from just under 2.75:1 (with just my adaptors in use) to nearly 8.2:1 with 150mm extension.

One big advantage of the enlarger lens is its small physical size. Its body diameter of just 4cm tapers down to less than 3cm, giving far less of an obstruction for lighting than a normal camera lens, and the quality's not bad

This Sprintail's relatives are already familiar to you. It was photographed using the 28mm lens with an extension of 82mm. That gave a magnification of nearly 4.3:1 for the whole frame, which was then cropped. The camera was hand-held and I used my ringflash:



Finally, in that Fredmiranda thread there is some confusing talk about magnifiications, where he talks about the setup giving a different magnification for film and for digital. While it is nice to have the apparent x1.6 factor while using my 20D as opposed to a film camera with, say, my 300mm lens In reality, the true magnification factor is the same, which ever medium is used. The smaller digital sensor simply crops the image - it does not magnify it above what would have been recorded on 35mm film. The size of the springtail's image would be identical on both film and sensor, with more of the surroundings appearing on the larger area film frame.

[racketman]

good detail of the Globular Springtail's compound eye. Is it feeding on a grape?

[mybitoftheplanet]

Originally Posted by racketman

good detail of the Globular Springtail's compound eye. Is it feeding on a grape?

Thanks racketman,

The Springtail is on a wet, and well decayed leaf. As for the eye, it's not actually a compound eye. Springtails have groups of simple eyes (properly called ocelli), but the dark area around them makes the group appear to be one eye.

[LordV]

Excellent springtail shot David
Thanks for the info and thought re an enlarger lens- have wondered about that but assumed that with anything smaller than about 50mm, I was likely to get significant vignetting.
Brian V.

[mybitoftheplanet]

Originally Posted by LordV

Excellent springtail shot David
Thanks for the info and thought re an enlarger lens- have wondered about that but assumed that with anything smaller than about 50mm, I was likely to get significant vignetting.
Brian V.

Thanks Brian,

Using enlarger lenses is certainly a lot cheaper than the Canon MP-E lens, especially when they appear on the s/h market, and their size does make them more lighting friendly. It also means that you can poke them into corners where a big lens will not fit!

While some enlarger lenses may only give a narrow field of view, I haven't had any problems with the 28mm Rodenstock, which was was designed for half-frame work. In any case, any vignetting problems will drift out of shot as you add extension tubes (which reminds me that I made a mistake in my first posting - the extension for the chip shot was 250mm and not 228mm- I can't add up!).

Something to watch for if you go looking for enlarger lenses is the presence of a filter thread so that you can use suitable step-up/down rings to mount it in reverse. My 28mm has a 30.5mm thread, which was a bit awkward, but the 50, 80 and 100mm Rodenstocks that I also use have 40.5mm threads, which was much easier to find bits for.

The other thing to bear in mind is, of course, the quality of the lens. I see that a new Rodenstock Rodagon 28mm will set you back some $384.95 in the US - I picked up mine from the Netherlands via ebay for £17.60. It was sold as s/h but came in its original packaging and didn't look as though it had been out of the box!

Something else that I should have mentioned about the 28mm is that the working distance ranges from about 3cm (with the adaptor and EOS/FD macro converter) down to 2.4cm with 150mm of extension tube added, but its narrow width still gives space for manouvre for your lighting.

[reewik]

I saw the pics on you flickr account... That is nuts!

[Ballen Photo]

Brian, WOW! What a settup. Thanks for sharing.
Hi David, Your shots at 15:1 are quite impressive as well.
Thanks for sharing them.
-Bruce

[mybitoftheplanet]

Originally Posted by Ballen Photo

Brian, WOW! What a settup. Thanks for sharing.
Hi David, Your shots at 15:1 are quite impressive as well.
Thanks for sharing them.
-Bruce

Thanks Bruce - It's a case of playing on a wet day!

In my earlier post I was using just extensions tubes with the enlarger lens or the 20mm macrophoto lens, so I decided to mount the latter on my auto-bellows with all the tubes, just to see what magnification it would give.

The two pictures below were taken with that arrangement which was, in effect, a 410mm (approximately) extension tube used with the 20mm lens.



As before, the main image is full frame, and the scale below is cropped to show the full image width, which is marginally more than 1mm. This represents a magnification of just over 22.:1 (This is accurate because I needed to make a very slight adjustment to the bellows during the fine focusing on the scale.). I'm not quite there, but this is getting much closer to the true magnification that was being discussed on the FredMiranda forum, without the complications of multiple lenses. A few more tubes and I'll match it!

I thought I'd throw in this second image - of Lincoln on the US 1 cent coin at the same scale. As before, the main image is a full frame one with no post-processing:



To position the coin, I use a microscope mechanical stage which I have added to the Auto-bellows macro-stage. This lets me move things left/right, forward/back without having to poke about under the lens. Set into the mechanical stage is a white perspex disc which rotates around a central pin so that I can rotate objects to suitable alignments. Lining Lincoln up without it would have been very awkward.

[mybitoftheplanet]

Originally Posted by mybitoftheplanet

As before, the main image is full frame, and the scale below is cropped to show the full image width, which is marginally more than 1mm. This represents a magnification of just over 22.:1 (This is accurate because I needed to make a very slight adjustment to the bellows during the fine focusing on the scale.).

A correction -I should have said that 'This is not absolutely accurate because I needed to make a very slight adjustment to the bellows during the fine focusing on the scale'. This meant a very slight change in the extension (between 1-2mm) between taking the photograph of the chip and then the scale. The same is true, but to a lesser extent in the case of the coin.

[Ballen Photo]

Originally Posted by mybitoftheplanet

A correction -I should have said that 'This is not absolutely accurate because I needed to make a very slight adjustment to the bellows during the fine focusing on the scale'. This meant a very slight change in the extension (between 1-2mm) between taking the photograph of the chip and then the scale. The same is true, but to a lesser extent in the case of the coin.

I'm probably wrong, but my quick math gave 20.5 to 1.
As you said though, this didn't account for the movement of bellows while focussing. Anyway, that's a LOT of magnification.
-Bruce

[mybitoftheplanet]

Originally Posted by Ballen Photo

I'm probably wrong, but my quick math gave 20.5 to 1.
As you said though, this didn't account for the movement of bellows while focussing. Anyway, that's a LOT of magnification.
-Bruce

I must be honest, I keep the maths to a mimimum when dealing with these things.

I based the 22:1 on the basis that the picture of the scale recorded almost exactly 1mm across the width. The 20D sensor is 22.5mm across so the magnification may actually be closer to 22.5:1.

[Bama]

The two pictures below were taken with that arrangement which was, in effect, a 410mm (approximately) extension tube used with the 20mm lens.

Wow, I'm very impressed. The picture of the semiconductor chip is usually taken with high end scopes or SEM m/cs that costs in the region of 6 figures.

This is taking macro to a truly upscale level...

regards
Bama