Telephoto Macro

<p>The extensive range of FD accessories sure comes in handy at times, especially when there's a particularly difficult shooting situation. </p>

<p>Once in a while you just need a lot of focal length for a macro situation, but then the minimum focusing distance is a bit too long. For relatively quiet subjects, such as dirt, I've finally come up with a solution for the problem. At 4,480mm, your working distance is so great that there's no fear of startling your subject, unless it sees the rig from the side. The Speedlites complicate setup, but are all needed since the effective aperture is something like f/20,000. The extension, nearing 500mm, reduces minimum focusing distance to a practical point. Depth of field is in the neighborhood of 1mm, so precise focusing with a C screen is essential.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the support required, inadequate though it is when using only the Earth as a foundation, precludes shooting living subjects.</p>

<p>A cable release is recommended, as well as a car battery adapted to power the Speedlites.</p>

<p>No FD gear was injured in the making of this setup. Happy April!</p><div></div>

<p>Gee, I wonder what a picture taken with that rig would look like.</p>

<p>You got by a Bellows Alan. I'd have to use the Bellows M I have around here some where.</p>

<p>BUT I do have 2) FD-50 2) FD-25 2) FD-15 1) M-10 and if I use my Adapter A and Adapter B I can swing into use about a foot of LTM mount tubes I have (but they say Leitz on them so I keep them in the other room) I have an Auto Bellows FD and of course a 500mm f4.5L S.S.C.<br>

As to the support I can easily out do the above photo with a Berlebach wood pod 2) Slick Master Deluxes a Bogen 3011/3026 combo and a velbon Max i 343 compact.<br>

I got the light stands and a big studio head as well as a 577G and 533G on transistor pak G's and a pair of Sunpack 433Ds to light the bug across the yard with</p>

<p>By the way Alan you bellows is sagging a bit LOL</p>

<p>One problem with this setup is that I couldn't use my remaining stash of Kodachrome 25. Dwayne's will stop processing this film after the end of the year and, at f/20,000, there's not enough time to expose the film, let alone calculate the adjustments for reciprocity failure.</p>

<p>You could give the folks at CERN at call, and offer to help photographing the inside of the Large Hadron Collider...</p>

<p>I thought that WAS the Large Hadron Collider...</p>

<p>A very interesting lens called the Questar 700 was once made. It was a very high quality mirror lens which allowed focusing down to the close-up range. It wasn't exactly small but it was muchg less unweildy than the set-up you are showing.</p>

<p>Hope you use ISO 25 film for the image quality!<br>

It is April 1st!</p>

<p>Alan, it is nice to see the big old FD lens trotted out on a sunny day, even if it <em>is </em>just for April 1st! <br>

By the way, it was this line that really made me chuckle: "For relatively quite subjects, such as dirt..." </p>

<p>somehow that just put it over the top for me! Thanks for the laugh. :)</p>

<p>Nice rig, Alan...<br>

I'd need an assistant...to remind me what the original intended subject was after setting it all up.<br>

Oh darn...the bug flew away!</p>

<p>Would be fun to see you focusing it :)</p>

<p>OH Alan I forgot to ask......you did make sure and build out from the body so you don't have any coupling problems and it stops down properly..</p>

<p>All joking aside I hope you didn't try to trip that aperture LOL.</p>

<p>I've got tears in my eyes from laughing at your responses. Thanks for buying in. And I have some Kodachrome 10 that my dad bought in 1949, saved for this very occasion.</p>

<p>I did actually do it wrong; I built it back from the lens. But as Mark suggests, it would strip all the mechanism out of the T90 trying to close the diaphragm. I have a 3 horsepower, three-phase electric motor I plan to use as a "Power Booster T1" to solve the diaphragm problem. The sagging bellows is a ruined parts unit that lived in somebody's attic for 20-30 years.</p>

<p>Focusing is achieved by trial and error and a lot of walking.</p>

<p>In a moment of additional frivolity, I did the math to calculate the effective aperture. Having not thought it through beforehand, it quite surprised me to find a loss of only about 1/4 stop due to the extension. Then it occurred to me that the light rays emerging from the rearmost extender would be almost parallel, so an extension of less than 10% of the focal length makes little difference. So unless I botched the calculation, the effective aperture with the 800mm wide open would be about f/32.2, speaking in terms of decimal tenths of a stop like my (non-Canon) handheld meter uses. Stopped down to f/32 for that 1mm depth of field, effective aperture ought to be f/180.2.</p>

<p>I actually set this up several years ago, then misplaced the film until recently. I've since bought a Bellows FL I can use instead of the dead one, so maybe when the summer sun arrives, I might just try an exposure. It would be difficult to pull off, but not impossible.</p>

<p>Hey Alan, how about adding a few diopter lenses in front, that should get you well past 1:1 magnification! Hmmm...I wonder who made diopters for 150mm filter thread... Hubble accessories from NASA maybe?</p>