Questions for LF camera

[benjamin_kim2]

<p>I know how to use it except for macro. How can I shoot small beetles with large format camera? <br>

They have these Toyo lenses btw.</p>

 

 

 

<p>65 f4.5, 75 f5.6, 90 f6.8, 105 f5.6, 135 f5.6, 150 f6.3, 210 f6.8, 240 f5.6, 300 f9 <br>

<br>

Do you think that the image quality might be bad due to the long vello? </p>

 

 

 

[Jochen_S]

<p>If you want a bug to fill your ground glass: Forget it; You'll run out of DOF to produce something good looking. Focus stacking needed.<br>

Lens picking: Your bellows has a rather finite length... Mine is 2' - You want to magnify the bug.. say its 1" that have to fill 5" of film so you need to enlarge your bug 5x Using the given equipment I would try reversing the shortest lens; i.e. exchange front and rear element if thats an option and draw my bellows about 30cm. If yours is in the 2' range too you could try the 105mm lens. Reverse it place it roughly a focal length in front of the bug. If you have bellows & rail extension and 2 tripods you could use longer lenses.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

A bigger problem you will have to deal with first is bellows draw. A 1:1 scale image of a beetle on LF leaves you with a bug sized image of a bug on a huge piece of film. Would you use a 300 mm lens, you will need 600 mm of bellows. Doable, but already a stretch (literally). For every full step in scale (from 1x life size to 2x life size, etc.) you need an additional focal length in bellows. So would you want to shoot a frame filling beetle that measures 10 mm in real life on 4x5, you would need almost 4 meters in bellows.<br><br>A 65 mm lens still requires 130 mm of bellows for life size reproduction. But that is quite doable. However, a 65 mm lens is indeed not designed to do such a thing, let alone create even larger magnifications.<br>>br>The solution used to be (and probably still is) to use short (say 100 mm) but specially designed macro lenses. Myself i have a set of Zeiss Luminars. The shorter ones (my set starts at 16 mm) are too short, start at too high a magnification. I also have a 210 (or is it 240?) mm macro lens that is good until about 3:1 reproduction ratio. But that already requires a lot of bellows.

[jose_angel]

<p>I like to use a specifically designed macro lens, with a reasonable shorter focal length that cover the 4x5" format at closer distances, the Nikkor-AM 120 (there is also a 210mm version). But as mentioned, it is only interesting if you want to include the surroundings of the "bug sized bug" into the frame.<br /> If you just want the bug, better to get it on a smaller format camera. The bug will be still 1:1 with a 105 or 55mm macro lens on a 35mm reflex. Or, if you want to use your LF camera anyway, you can attach (e.g., glue) a SLR lens mount on a LF lens board (depending on the lens it will have more or less coverage). Another choice is to use an enlarging lens in the same manner (I have tested some enlarging and process lenses with no better results compared to my SLR Micro-Nikkors). This way you will be plenty of bellows to get even much higher magnifications, also to have camera movements; but usually, the lack of DoF makes it unpractical. You will miss the shutter, too.<br /> I suspect your 300/9 could be a process lens, maybe good near 1:1, but with the bellows problem mentioned above.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

I had to run this morning, so more now: another issue with frame filling macro's on LF is that not only do they require a very large set up to achieve, they also have very, very little depth of field and are a royal pain in the posterior to set up and focus (not only no DoF, but also very dark).<br>For 'serious' macro a smaller camera system would be much more convenient without producing results less in quality.<br>But that's from a frame filling approach. You could also approach this (as Jose has already written about) from a magnification point of view. Life size magnification is life size magnification, and easy to achieve. The difference between 35 mm format, MF and LF is an increasing field of view at the same magnification.<br><br>Having said all that, i must add that as long as you keep it moderate, around 1:1, perhaps up to 3:1, it is all perfectly doable using LF.

[bob_salomon]

If you want greater then life size then the easiest way is with a lens like the M-Componon or a very good reversed

enlarging lens like the Apo Rodagon N series. Linhof used to make a dedicated Macro Lensborad which consisted of the

board with a tapered tube mounted on it with a O size shutter on the end of the tube. The later version of this board, with

the Copal shutter, accepted standard Leica thread 39mm mounted lenses. The earlier Compur shutter version took

special threaded macro lenses like the Zeiss Luminars.

Depending on the focal length of the lens magnification of up to 32 times were easily obtainable. However lighting and

depth of field is tricky. Linhof used the tapered tube design to allow positioning the lights closer to the lens, if desired. The

easiest light would be either a good cold light system like the Kaiser of a good ring light.

Using regular large format macro lenses like the 120 and 180mm Apo Macro Sironars or the 210 and 300mm Makro

Sironars would limit you to, at best, probably somewhere between 3 to 5x life size but at the cost of great bellows

extension and greater light loss then with the enlarging lens route.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Light loss is an inverse square law issue and it doesn't matter what lens you use; you'll lose the same amount of light at any given magnification no matter what lens, camera lens or enlarging lens.

[bob_salomon]

But you will have minimal extension so less bellows factor.

[benjamin_kim2]

<p>I will going to use 4x5 CX Monorail Studio Camera btw. For the screen darkness, I can use several omni lights to put on for focusing so it won't be a problem. I know that I need to calculate for bellow extension. And I still don't understand about dof. Why can't I use F64 or F128 and tilt, shift, and etc for controlling dof? Not enough to have deep dof?</p>

[AJG]

<p>You can certainly use f/64, f/90 or f/128 if they are available on the lenses you have access to, but depth of field is negligible at the close distances that you'll be working at, even stopped down that far. If you do work with shorter focal lengths to increase magnification on film, you will also find that the lens will get very close to your subject, making it harder to control lighting. To use longer focal lengths like a 210 or 240, you will need additional bellows and monorail and a very sturdy tripod to get close focus. I photographed a lot of jewelry with a 4x5, 30 inch custom made bellows and 210 lens for a book project in the pre digital era and wound up firing Buff X3200 flash units 4-8 times at full power for a single sheet of film to deal with small f/stops made effectively smaller by the extreme extension on ISO 100 Fuji Astia. So it can be done, but it won't be quick, easy or necessarily yield the best possible results.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

No, Bob. It's relative: bellows draw to the focal length.<br>100 mm of extension needed to achieve 1:1 with a 50 mm lens needs 2 stops of compensation for bellows draw. 600 mm of extension necessary to achieve 1:1 using a 300 mm lens also requires 2 stops. No matter that 100 mm is much less than 600 mm, in both cases it is 2x the focal length. So the same light loss due to bellows draw.<br><br>Assuming they all cover whatever format we use, and ignoring lens design issues, the only (but important) advantage of shorter lenses over longer ones is that they require smaller set ups/cameras. Or, conversely, they allow to achieve higher magnifications without needing huge amounts of extension. But light loss is the same at any given magnification. DoF is also the same given the same (final) magnification and f-stop.<br><br>I would advise against stopping down very much. DoF is shallow, and stopping down will indeed increase DoF, but (say) double very little is still very little. But while you stop down the effects of diffraction will seriously impair image quality. Quite visibly in macro work.<br>So use tilts to position the shallow plane of sharpness and adjoining DoF, and compose such that an image looks good with little DoF but that well chosen position of the plane of sharpness. But don't stop down to f/64 or even f/128. Find out where stopping down no longer improves quality limiting lens faults, (and that usually does not take much, a stop or two) and limit stopping down to not much more than that.

[dan_fromm2]

<blockquote>

<p>And I still don't understand about dof. Why can't I use F64 or F128 and tilt, shift, and etc for controlling dof? Not enough to have deep dof?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Do not spend any money on equipment before you've bought copies of:</p>

<p><strong>Lefkowitz, Lester.</strong> 1979. The Manual of Close-Up Photography. Amphoto. Garden City, NY. 272 pp. ISBN 0-8174-2456-3 (hardbound) and 0-8174-2130-0 (softbound).</p>

<p> A thorough discussion of getting the magnification, lighting, and exposure. Especially good on working above 1:1. Extensive bibliography.</p>

<p><strong>Gibson, H. Lou</strong>. Close-Up Photography and Photomacrography. 1970. Publication N-16. Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY. 98+95+6 pp. The two sections were published separately as Kodak Publications N-12A and N-12B respectively. Republished in 1977 with changes and without the 6 page analytic supplement, which was published separately as Kodak Publication N-15. 1977 edition is ISBN 0-87985-206-2.</p>

<p> Gibson is very strong on lighting, exposure, and on what can and cannot be accomplished. His books, although relatively weak on getting the magnification with lenses made for modern SLR cameras, provide a very useful foundation for thinking about working at magnifications above 1:10 and especially above 1:1. Extensive bibliography.</p>

<p>Gibson explains why stopping down can <em>reduce</em> depth of field and gives example photographs. Short answer, stopping down to a small effective aperture reduces resolution because of diffraction. Shooting closeup at f/64 or f/128 (set or effective) is simply a waste of time, effort and film. </p>

[AJG]

<p>Dan's right about loss of sharpness at small apertures--my 300 f/9 Nikkor M is a very sharp lens, but at f/90 or f/128 it's a high class pinhole in a Copal shutter.</p>