Macro with Mamiya Press Lenses. Which Lenses to Use

I have been using the mamiya press system for a few years and just

ordered some extension tubes. My lens lineup includes the following:

90mm f3.5 (my least used lens), 65mm, 127mm lens, and the 250mm f5.

I will be adding the 50 and the 100mm f2.8 if the right buy comes up

on ebay.

Which of these lenses will give the best (sharpest) results at 1:2

through 1:1

None of these are macro-optimized, but only the 50 and 250 are really ugly at 1:1. The

65, being a symmetrical design, gives better macro performance than one would expect of

a lens that wide.

Thanks for the response Roger. I'm a little surprised the 65 is a little better than the 50 for the close up stuff, given the stellar reports for the 50 as a great wa lens.

It will be interesting to see how the 127mm does.

Eric

Personally I would shy away from the 65mm. Sometime back, I stacked 2 sets of extension tubes with the black 150mm. I received excellent results even though exposures runned into several minutes (AGFA 25, and lens well stopped down) - was having lunch during exposures :)

I would imagine your 127 being a good performer for almost all applications. I had that lens but never used it, prefered the 150mm for no apparent reason actually, especially since the 127mm P should be a latter lens and better coated.

-- Marios