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Trying a Photar f4.5 80mm Macro
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2019 4:22 pm    Post subject: Trying a Photar f4.5 80mm Macro Reply with quote
The following is the draft of an account which I intended to post elsewhere but seem not to have done so. This is from last year and I have done minimal editing, the practical details having long been forgotten, other than what follows.

I noted the presence of this lens on Ebay for quite a long time. I believe I was one of 12 watching. Offers were invited and I waited for it to be relisted before submitting an offer. I expected a counter offer but mine was accepted.

Before buying, I tried to find information about the lens and its performance but found nothing useful. Based on having a 50mm Photar with superb performance, I went ahead with the purchase.

I used a triple helicoid extension. On m4/3 (17.5mm sensor) one helicoid fully opened up gave FOV 7mm wide, two gave 4.5mm and three gave 4mm. Extensions from the camera flange were 320, 360 and 415mm, respectively (add 20mm for distance from the sensor).

The setup was hand-held and illuminated via triple TTL RC flash.

I chose f8 and f11 to test. Only the images sets at 4.5mm & 4mm FOV and f8 f11 delivered ones worth using, such that here the (uncropped) ones with the subject a little larger were FOV 4mm. The first three were at f8 and the other two at f11.

A great deal of what a lens will do depends on how it is used. This was my first attempt. It was in bright sunlight, which illuminates the subject perfectly but it also is very contrasty, making seeing the subject in the viewfinder a bit difficult, such that using the tiny DOF can be tricky to judge. So, not many images were acceptable and none should be taken as a showing the best that the lens can do.

Whether by intention or sheer luck, some of the images provided stereo pairs, presented as crosseye versions.

The subject is the fruiting bodied of the slime mould Stemonitopsis typdoides. They are not necessarily in line with their stalks or straight cylinders, so there DOF issues.

Olympus EM-1, Leitz Wetzlar Photar, lots of extension, 1:4.5/80, triple TTL flash.




Crosseye stereo










Crosseye stereo



Last edited by e6filmuser on Tue Mar 12, 2019 7:07 am; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2019 10:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
It's a good lens. I have a couple of them that I picked up specifically to test against a bunch of other 80mm lenses, see my "shootout" results here: http://www.macrocoins.com/80mm-lens-shootout.html

Overall sharpness is not quite as good as a few other lenses, mainly because of the relatively small max aperture, but it has excellent and flat coverage so it did fine in the final tally.


PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ray Parkhurst wrote:
It's a good lens. I have a couple of them that I picked up specifically to test against a bunch of other 80mm lenses, see my "shootout" results here: http://www.macrocoins.com/80mm-lens-shootout.html

Overall sharpness is not quite as good as a few other lenses, mainly because of the relatively small max aperture, but it has excellent and flat coverage so it did fine in the final tally.


Thanks for the link. An excellent study although what a lens does with focus stacking is not particularly helpful for working with mobile live subjects, which is what I chose to photograph. Yes, those spore-bearing structures are easily moved around in tiny air currents.


PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 7:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I have reloaded the images after removing some sensor dust spots from the first three.


PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Results look good! Like 1 small


PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
dbuergi wrote:
Results look good! Like 1 small


Thanks. The application was towards the upper limit of its design range. Another time, I would use the 25mm Photar instead for such a subject.
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