I Am Ignorant of Macro (shouldn't that be micro?) Photography

Occasionally I want to take a picture of a small thing and make it

big however. I have an Apo 200mm lense for my Mamiya Pro. I figured

out that it's closest focus was around 8 feet and that it's area of

coverage was around 24 or 30 inches wide by 18 or 20 inches high.

Not very macro. I put a propietary 2X extender on it and it still

doesn't get closer than 8 ft but the area of coverage is 10 or 12

inches wide. That's macro enough to make a small bunch of flowers

fill the frame. Rather nicely too I might add. Very sharp.

 

But I would like to make a large bug (we have some whoppers around

here) span the 645 frame or say one flower or a toad stool or a toad

itself for that matter fill up the frame. But I don't want to spend

many hundreds if not well over a thousand for a 120 'Macro' lense.

So what is the best way to go? Extension rings (how many would I

need) or reversing adapters? And what is the optimum normal mamiya

645 lense to jury rig into a macro lense when you want to go at

least 1 to 1? I have an 80mm N and a 45mm N WA (not the WA right?).

The 200mm with the extender can photograph a hair at eight feet and

make it quite prominent. Cactus needles look like spears.

OOps..... Thanks for any help you all can give me.

for a fracion of the costs of one of those fancy lenses i would suggest getting a mamiya c330 pro with about 80mm or 105 for sharness to do macro.smaller f the better... get the bellows compensating screen..this should get that bug filling the frame...or the next logical step would be a crown graphic/speed graphinc with rotating back, and you stll would be aobut one to one, but a rose can be full size filling the frame with possibilities of a 30x40 print.. but be warned, the neg/ chrome has to have a photographer good enought to make it look good at that size.. that is that bug will look pretty good on a 4x5 print.. but at 30x 40 the judges, (your wife and kids,) will bee (pun intended) looking to see if its antennae are in focus to the ends.. by the way most bugs wont stand still enought for the one to two hour set up for such a shot... polaroid proofs multiple flash positioning, etc...you may need some fingernail polish remover in with them in a jar to slow em down.....it can take tremendous light and small f and sometimes multiple flashes to get depth of field up to 1 inch or over with macro bellows extensions. my opionion only... good luck..dave..

Before you spend serious money on extension rings/tubes or bellows or macro lenses or other cameras, get yourself a couple of closeup lenses. Close up lenses can be stacked to get even closer, and a 4x lens gives me about a 10cm wide field with the 110/2.8 lens, so you may want to get a couple. Even cheaper single element lenses work surprisingly well. The Canon 250D is the Rolls Royce of closeup lenses: it's a multi-element lens, moves infinity focus to .250 meters, and should cost between US$50 and US$100. The 58mm version should work with your 80mm lens. If your 80mm lens is the f/1.9 lens, you'll need 67mm closeup lenses, making this a less attractive proposition. (Except for the 35mm, all my lenses take 58mm filters.)

 

FWIW, IMHO "macro" should be used for magnifications up to a few times life size on the film, and "micro" for much higher magnifications. So bug and flower shots are macro. IMHO.

David's summary of the terms macro and micro pretty well matches the standard definition accepted by most photographers.

 

Unfortunately camera and lens makers seem determined to wreak confusion on us by interchanging the terms.

 

For example, Olympus - with its heritage in the manufacture of microscopes - referred to its lens systems that enabled magnification up to 1:1 as "macro" lenses. Their specialty systems that enabled larger magnification were generally referred to as "micro" systems.

 

But Nikon came along and started calling all of its lenses capable of 1:2 or higher magnification "Micro-Nikkors," thus spreading confusion throughout the globe.

 

Hence I own a 50mm f/3.5 Zuiko macro and a 55mm f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor, both capable of 1:2 magnification without extension tubes or close up diopters.

 

Fun, huh?

try using a Canon 500D telephoto diopter on the front of your 200mm APO + tele-

extender before

you try bellows or extention tubes.<P>You might also need to work with your normal

focal length lens as well.

I have an old US Air Force Dental Photography manual that defines Macrophotography as having magnification ranging from 1:5 to 5:1 and microphotography as greater than 5:1 magnification.

Everybody seems to be shunning this, so let me be the pedant pointing out that the correct terms are not macrophotography and microphotography, but photomacrograpy and photomicrography.<br>The term microphotograpy has been in use to denote the business of making very, very small images of normal sized objects since, oh..., the beginning of time.<br>Macrophotography, by analogy, would then be making very, very large photo's of normal sized objects.<br><br>;-)