First time using old lens

I love my 65mpe, a truely amazing lens. At 5x, available light photography can be difficult because the lens is so close to the subject it can interfere with the lighting.

I obtained a bargain large format lens commonly used in the reproduction area, a Schneider 58mm repro-claron. It was surprisngly small and screwed on to one of my sets of tubes. Mounting it on about 325 mm of extension in the form of bellows and tubes, I estimate that the image is nearly 5x.

For natural light photography, it has two advantages over my 65mpe. It truly has a focal lenth of 58mm at 5x unlike the mpe which shortens its focal length substantially at higher magnifications. Also it has a much thinner profile. The upshot is that you are 5 or so inches from your subject away at 5x and you don't cast as much of a shadow. It's a very slow lens, f8 so it does not have the nice bright image. At magnificatio, the image is dim in deed and I used a flashlight to additional light for focussing.

I was fascinated by this spine cluster of a Mammillaria theresea and wanted to see what it looked under magnification.

Please let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy.

Irwin

PS after I posted, I saw a few areas in which I did not remove the halo. I will do so later and repost the cleaned up image.

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Hiya Irwin,

That's a great shot irrespective of the " small bits " you say you did not remove.

If this is as small as I think it is that musta been hellish hard to shoot especially with everything being so white.

Don't you just love my technical terminology eh.

Cheers for now
Mark

Crazy magnification Irwin. You done really well to get this. Next step Microscopy I suppose

Hi Irwin that amazing magnification very nice clear shot
I cant begin to imagine how you focussed I struggle when the light is low with my Sigma 105
pete

Hi Mark, Alby and Pete. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughtful comments. I was amazed at the clarity of these old optics.

Attic wrote in post #3603449
Crazy magnification Irwin. You done really well to get this. Next step Microscopy I suppose

It seems that the high magnification work is similar to microsopy in several respects. When I work at 1:1, I canvisualize the image. I may be able to see a little more detail in the image than I had seen by just looking, but essentially I could see the whole image. At higher magnification, a whole new level of insight becomes possible. It is both adventurous and revelatory because many of the deail are not apparrant to the naked eye.

Take care and best withes to y'all.