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Extreme macro lenses?
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Home   Manual Focus Lenses
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2013 6:43 pm    Post subject: Extreme macro lenses? Reply with quote
What are good manual focus extreme macro (5:1 - 1:1) lenses? I know Canon makes an MP-E 60mm but it's plastic. I'm wondering what similar lenses exist in the world of M42/old Nikon/anything adaptable to Canon EF mount, that are made of at least metal housing (so I won't break it on hiking trips) and have nice buttery focus ring with minimal backlash.

I have a 1:1 C-Y Zeiss 100/2.8 which is damn good as-is at but it doesn't do very well past 2:1 with extension tubes.

What did people use for extreme macro in the pre-digital days?


PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2013 6:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Reverse mounted any lens ? I know Pancolar is very good reverse mounted


PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2013 7:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
There´s some info about special macro lenses at

http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html.

Click "Lenses" at left and scroll down the page.


PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2013 8:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
How do you want to use 3:1 in the field - there is no D-OF, you need to thwack the subject to keep still forever, etc. etc. Its more economical to catch the bug and shoot it later.

Most macro lenses go to 1:1 for a reason. In fact, 1:1 is only bearable by the no-cost of digital, shoot 20 and throw 18 away.


PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2013 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Are you carrying a zoom lens with you? Then you have the option to "stack" lenses to make a zoom supermacro lens. Let's say you're already carrying a 70-210mm zoom. Then if you also carry a 50mm prime, and a "reversing ring" with the filter threads of the zoom on one side and threads of the 50mm on the other, all you have to do is screw the 50mm onto the zoom "face to face" and you have a 1.4x to 4.2x continuously-variable zoom supermacro lens. The quality of this setup can be very, very good...Ray


PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2013 9:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
What plastic has to do with performance?
Canon MP-E is the only dedicated lens who delivers a 5X magnification.
I know a few people on different forums who are using it on a regular basis.
None of them complain that is made of plastic.


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 3:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Himself wrote:

Canon MP-E is the only dedicated lens who delivers a 5X magnification.


There is also the Yasuhara Nanoha for MFT, which provides 4x-5x magnification.


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 4:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
If what you care most about is getting high mag with excellent image quality, microscope objectives will give you great performance. You would just need to swap them out if you want to change magnification...


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 5:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I made a special site for those with data, usueful range etc. many years ago and have
collected many (>500 showing some 300 of them): http://macrolenses.de

It usually comes up in Google's top 5, I wonder why you haven't seen it yet....


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 7:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Himself wrote:
What plastic has to do with performance?
Canon MP-E is the only dedicated lens who delivers a 5X magnification.
I know a few people on different forums who are using it on a regular basis.
None of them complain that is made of plastic.


read the question again and you will get the answer


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 7:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I had the Canon MP-E a few years ago and it is not plastic (if they kept the design that is...). Tack sharp lens it is, easy to use, except the large front makes proper macro lighting a bit uneasy. Today I prefer helicoids and/or bellows with a dedicated macro lens (Zeiss Luminar, Nikon Macro Nikkor, Leitz Photar in that sequence) for such magnifications.


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 9:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Have any of you heard of this lens?

Yasuhara Nanoha Macro Lens 5:1 for Sony E Mount (NEX)

It's freaky looking because it has lights at the front. I would be interested if anybody here has experience with this lens.

On another note, I have a proper Nikon extension tube that I have tried with my Nikkor f2 50mm but its no good. Magnification is so strong that it doesn't pick up anything in focus. Depth of field is non-existent.

I haven't tried it with my 35mm AFS 1.8G auto lens yet so I'm reminded by this thread to test it out. With the 50mm on my D3200 it doesn't work. Maybe it's because the camera is crop sensor.


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 3:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
parabellumfoto wrote:
Have any of you heard of this lens?

Yasuhara Nanoha Macro Lens 5:1 for Sony E Mount (NEX)

It's freaky looking because it has lights at the front. I would be interested if anybody here has experience with this lens.

On another note, I have a proper Nikon extension tube that I have tried with my Nikkor f2 50mm but its no good. Magnification is so strong that it doesn't pick up anything in focus. Depth of field is non-existent.

I haven't tried it with my 35mm AFS 1.8G auto lens yet so I'm reminded by this thread to test it out. With the 50mm on my D3200 it doesn't work. Maybe it's because the camera is crop sensor.


Looks interesting but the built-in lights are a concern. Lighting is one of the things that need fine adjustment, and having them be fixed doesn't give any flexibility. I can't tell if you can turn on the lights individually or not. The lens is $500, cheaper than the MPE but it also seems to be fixed at 5x, maybe adjustable to 4x? Worth looking into if you are using NEX or other MILC.

Your 50mm might be giving a magnification of 1x - maybe 2x on reasonable extension tubes. Should work fine!


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ray Parkhurst wrote:
parabellumfoto wrote:
Have any of you heard of this lens?

Yasuhara Nanoha Macro Lens 5:1 for Sony E Mount (NEX)

It's freaky looking because it has lights at the front. I would be interested if anybody here has experience with this lens.

On another note, I have a proper Nikon extension tube that I have tried with my Nikkor f2 50mm but its no good. Magnification is so strong that it doesn't pick up anything in focus. Depth of field is non-existent.

I haven't tried it with my 35mm AFS 1.8G auto lens yet so I'm reminded by this thread to test it out. With the 50mm on my D3200 it doesn't work. Maybe it's because the camera is crop sensor.


Looks interesting but the built-in lights are a concern. Lighting is one of the things that need fine adjustment, and having them be fixed doesn't give any flexibility. I can't tell if you can turn on the lights individually or not. The lens is $500, cheaper than the MPE but it also seems to be fixed at 5x, maybe adjustable to 4x? Worth looking into if you are using NEX or other MILC.

Your 50mm might be giving a magnification of 1x - maybe 2x on reasonable extension tubes. Should work fine!


My Nikon extension tube says M2 so I guess it's 2x.

As for this other lens, the lights are detachable if my memory is correct. I would like to know if it is any good.


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 4:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
kds315* wrote:
I made a special site for those with data, usueful range etc. many years ago and have
collected many (>500 showing some 300 of them): http://macrolenses.de


It is a very impressive collection and surely a useful site for someone already into these lenses, but I must say that I've visited that site several times due to links on this forum, and I've never been able to extract any “special macro lens beginner” information from it, e.g., which adapters and focusing systems should I get for which lenses, which mount should I prefer given the choice, do they cover, e.g., FF or APS-C, etc. And there are so many lenses in the list that googling each separately is not an option, so without external info it's just a list of unknown lenses of unknown price, availability, and properties.

Please not that I'm not not saying that it's a bad site, I'm sure it's very useful for the already initiated and could be that you just want to keep it as a reference for such people. But as a response to the question in this topic it does not really work… But some kind of FAQ/tutorial/how-to would make it great, especially if you included some lens recommendations in a couple of price ranges.

kds315* wrote:
It usually comes up in Google's top 5, I wonder why you haven't seen it yet....


I think google might have learned your connection to the site and that's why you get it high in the results. For me the search “macro lenses” has it on the second page of results (position 14 currently) and in the search “high magnification macro lenses” it does not show up in the first 400 results.

The site needs more text about the lenses to get higher in the rankings, list-type pages are hard to get high in google results due to spammers making word lists.


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I use a cheap combo canon FD 28mm reverse on extension tubes /36mm/ and flash. so far so good Smile
got the idea here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqRn3at0H60




PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 8:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
parabellumfoto wrote:


My Nikon extension tube says M2 so I guess it's 2x.

As for this other lens, the lights are detachable if my memory is correct. I would like to know if it is any good.


The Nikon M2 is just a 27.5mm extension tube with no optics. Along with your 50mm lens it probably won't even get you to 1:1. If you're having issues with DOF with just this extension, then 5x is going to be a disaster...


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ray Parkhurst wrote:
parabellumfoto wrote:


My Nikon extension tube says M2 so I guess it's 2x.

As for this other lens, the lights are detachable if my memory is correct. I would like to know if it is any good.


The Nikon M2 is just a 27.5mm extension tube with no optics. Along with your 50mm lens it probably won't even get you to 1:1. If you're having issues with DOF with just this extension, then 5x is going to be a disaster...


I just tried it again. I shot a dead mosquito and will post a sample later on today. Depth of field appears to be about 3mm.

With this combination it's the best magnification I can get from the lenses that I have. It's closer than my Rokkor on an adapter.


PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2013 10:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I vote for any reversed 20-50mm lens - cheap and good! Forget tubes!
Reversed decent enlarger lenses <=50mm are also very good (Rodagon, E-Nikkor,...)

Up to 3:1 I'm using mostly Noritsu 50.7/9.5 (use search function) - very good and comparable versatile as it works wonderful through the whole magnification range without reversing etc.

The lenses KDS named are generally better though.
And I guess the highest resolution you can obtain with high-end scientific 5x microscope lenses from Mitutoyo, Nikon, Olympus, Zeiss, Leitz and so on. But they also have vignetting an most of them need dedicated tubes lenses optimum performance.

Last edited by ForenSeil on Thu May 23, 2013 8:19 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 2:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
ForenSeil wrote:
I vote for any reversed 20-50mm lens - cheap and good! Forget tubes!
Reversed decent enlarger lenses <=50mm are also very good (Rodagon, E-Nikkor,...)

Up to 3:1 I'm using mostly Noritsu 50.7/9.5 (use search function) - very good and comparable versatile as it works wonderful through the whole magnification range without reversing etc.

The lenses KDS named are generally better though.
And I guess the highest resolution you can obtain with high-end scientific 5x microscope lenses from Mitutoyo, Nikon, Olympus, Zeiss, Leitz and so on.


My preferred solutions at 3x and 5x are the Nikon Measurescope objectives. They are nearly telecentric and have exceptional working distances. The 5x is the sharpest I've ever tested in the center, even better than my Mitutoyo 5x MPlan Apo, and still quite good at the edges of APS-C. Working distance of the 5x is about 75mm, which is what you would expect for a macro lens at 1x, not a 5x objective.


PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 10:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
yeah wait a moment F11 starting aperture?

"No one will notice" right?

(On a smallish nex sensor! yay!)


PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 11:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ray Parkhurst wrote:

The Nikon M2 is just a 27.5mm extension tube with no optics. Along with your 50mm lens it probably won't even get you to 1:1.

nikon m2 is matching tube for nikkor 55mm macro to achieve 1:1


PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 11:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
WolverineX wrote:
Ray Parkhurst wrote:

The Nikon M2 is just a 27.5mm extension tube with no optics. Along with your 50mm lens it probably won't even get you to 1:1.

nikon m2 is matching tube for nikkor 55mm macro to achieve 1:1


So if I find a 55mm I will have a set then.

What aperture is this 55mm Nikon macro?

Edit: found the answer already by looking at Wolverine's lens collection.

3.5

Probably a very good lens if it's in that collection as well. Laughing


PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 12:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
parabellumfoto wrote:
What aperture is this 55mm Nikon macro?

Edit: found the answer already by looking at Wolverine's lens collection.

3.5


there is also 2.8 version


PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
WolverineX wrote:
parabellumfoto wrote:
What aperture is this 55mm Nikon macro?

Edit: found the answer already by looking at Wolverine's lens collection.

3.5


there is also 2.8 version


OK thanks. I'll keep an eye out for both.

My 50mm Nikkor gets a very narrow depth of field with the extender. Makes it very hard for macro. I didn't get a chance to post a sample pic today. I will try to show the image tomorrow.
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