Macro medium format

<p>Hi, I have 35mm equipment and take few macro photos ( I have shot more of birds, animals, buildings). I am recently trying to get into more macro (insects and maybe flowers too).<br>

<br />I stumbled upon the macro large format thread and was wondering how macro on 35mm and medium format compared.<br>

I have a canon eos 30 , eos 3 in 35mm . In medium format , I recently got the Pentax 67ii along with the AE prism finder</p>

<p>For the 67, Pentax had a 100/4 macro. </p>

<dl>

<ul>

<li>1:2 magnification possible without additional accessories</li>

<li>1:1 magnification possible using included Life Size Adapter (filter)</li>

</ul>

</dl>

<p>They also had a 135/4 macro. </p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

<p>Medium format can be used for macro (closeup) photography, using a variety of tools. An Hasselblad 120/4 Makro lens can focus as close as 1:4 (quarter size) without attachments, or much closer using extension tubes or a bellows attachment. Closeup lenses allow you to focus closer, but at the expense of generally poor image quality. Extension tubes move the lens further from the film plane for closer focusing, without imposing any optics other than the lens itself.</p>

<p>A lens designed for closeups, like the 120 Makro, have a flatter field at close range than conventional lenses. However at modest magnification (< 1:2), using extension tubes, most lenses are quite sharp even in the corners. Lenses longer than "normal" tend to work better than shorter lenses. There is less curvature of field, and the working distance is greater (lens to subject).</p>

<p>Aside from larger images (less grain, etc), a key advantage of MF for macrophotography is the long working distance. That distance is proportional to the focal length at any given magnification. I like to use a 180 mm lens on an Hasselblad for closeups in nature. The lens is about 18" from the subject for a working area the size of a 4x6" postcard. Extension tubes are easily assembled in the field and are rigid enough to use a conventional tripod without special support for the lens.</p>

<p>Thanks Edward. Larger images and long working distance would be advantage of MF over 35mm?</p>

<p>I do a lot of macro and the idea of carry large camera bodies around does not appeal. The smaller your hardware, the more insects you will be able to get close enough to photograph them. I use some large format lenses for macro but on an m4/3 body.</p>

<p>Thanks Harold. That was one thing that I was thinking about.</p>

<p>If you can get comparable quality from a smaller camera, it's less you have to carry. However not all closeup subjects wriggle and fly. In general, a lens designed for a larger format will not perform as well as a lens designed for a smaller one. Exceptions include lenses which resemble those for LF cameras designed for use on so-called technical cameras, optimized for digital capture with an MF digital back. Hasselblad and other DM SLR cameras are compromised to the extent lenses must have a long back focus distance for mirror clearance. These technical lenses are not so encumbered.</p>

<p>Hasselblad - CVF16 Digital Back - CF180/4 lens + 16 mm extension<br /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18179699-lg.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Edward,<br>

Yes, you say "generally" but I think there is largely a myth that lenses for larger formats were used for +/- contact prints and did not need so much resolution as for e.g. 35mm. I have not done extensive research but, for macro, the large format Leitz Wetzlar Summar 12cmm 4.5 and the 105mm and 150mm Printing Nikkors, have outstanding performance.<br>

Also, for macro, I find that there is no visible loss of detail through a high quality TC, such as a my Kiron Matchmate x1.5. In the case of the Nikkors, their minimum aperture can be effectively made f22, giving valuable additional DOF.</p>

<p>MTF curves for medium format lenses typically have 10% less contrast for the same frequency than lenses of comparable quality for small format use. Contrast lower than 50% is more of academic interest than practical use. You probably can't see the difference using film, but digital imaging is much more demanding.</p>

<p>How do you mount a LF lens on a medium format camera, and maintain alignment, exclude stray light and allow for precision focusing? It's hard enough to manage large, heavy cameras and lenses in the field without coping with a Rube Goldberg concoction.</p>

<p>Like you I wondered many years ago if using a larger film format would give me an edge in macro photography, I had been using at that time an Olympus OM4Ti with a Tamron 90mm lens and getting fantastic bitingly sharp images. So I bought a 135mm Pentax lens for my Pentax 67 (and later 67II) and experimented with it and also my 200mm lens and a Pentax helicoid extension tube that I bought. Complete waste of time, many images (particularly with the 200mm lens) were fractionally unsharp, depth of field was tiny even stopped down (remember that a digital DX camera has more depth of field than FX and for every film/sensor size larger than that you need to stop down, more and more to get enough depth of field and it was nowhere near as close up as I was getting so easily with the 35mm outfit. The 135mm lens was a lot better and easier to use but just not truly macro, I think the newer 100mm lens would be the best option if you want to give this a go. However trying to move around a camera like a Pentax 67 even with a heavy Benbo type tripod and very solid head was very tricky for precise framing and tiny movements. That camera gave me great landscape images but was very disappointing when used for macro. I'm not saying that it can't be done, just that in these days of high resolution full frame digital SLR cameras with Live View zoomed right in, that way is so much easier as you can instantly see if you have a good image. With the Pentax 67 it will cost you a lot of film to maybe get lucky. Try it by all means but there are easier ways to get good results taking true macro photographs and not just images that are a bit closer than normal.</p>

<p>DOF is determined entirely and only by the effective aperture and the magnification. It has nothing to do with focal length or the design of the lens, assuming it to be of acceptable quality, working distance or anything else</p>

<p>If you have a scanner which can do a credible job of scanning a 6x7 negative (the Nikon Super CoolScan 8000 or 9000 are superb scanners) and don't mind the extra weight and size of MF over 35mm/FX, the 6x7 will give you better quality overall. But Pentax's 153mm f/4 macro lens only focuses down to around 2 feet which gives you around 1:3. With the extension tube, however, you can get to 1:1. Used they are going for between $400-500 on Fleabay. Not sure about the extension tube.</p>