Macro Work

[morey_kitzman]

What lens and how much bellows extension is needed for Macro with the

Linhof V? Thanks.

[darin_cozine]

that really depends on what lens you are using, what magnifacation you want, etc.

[pvp]

More to the point is knowing how close you can get using the lens you have. Any lens will take macro photos, if you have enough bellows. Life size (on the film) requires twice as much bellows as the focal length of the lens. IOW, a 6 inch lens (150mm) needs 12 inches of bellows to shoot 1:1.

[allen_whittier]

More info is needed to answer your question. You can use any lens as long as you have enough bellows extension. So the the question becomes what range of lenses will work for the amount of magnification you want and what your longest bellows extension is.

 

To calculate bellows extensio; the magnification times the focal length of the lens plus the focal length of the lens. So, a 65mm lens at 1 to 1 would be (65mm x 1) + 65mm = 130mm bellows. For two times magnification it would be (65mm x 2) + 65mm = 195mm bellows extension.

 

You can look at your lenses and work back to your max magnification. To do this; start with your longest bellows extension and subtract the lens length from it. Then take the remainder and divide it by the focal length of the lens. So if your max bellows extension was 250mm and you have a 65mm lens, (250mm - 65mm) / 65mm = 185/65 = max magnification ratio of 2.85.

 

One quick answer to your question would be that if you want a lot of magnification you need short lenses. You don't need lenses that will cover your format at infinity though. Remember that doubling the distance from the lens to the film doubles the image circle too. Some very creative things have been done using lenses from smaller formats to get high magnification ratios. I hope this helps.

[john_gerndt1]

May we all assume you know that macro (flat field)lenses are different from standard lenses and that you will be using lenses suited to the task? My apologies if this is out of line.

 

John

[morey_kitzman]

John

 

Your comments are not out of line. I see large format lenses with a Macro designation and would like to know how they perform differently from the lenses without that designation. Specifically, do the macro lenses allow for greater magnification, do they give you more depth of field, and can they be used for shooting non macro. Thanks.

[dan_fromm2]

Morey Kitzman asked "Specifically, do the macro lenses allow for greater magnification, do they give you more depth of field, and can they be used for shooting non macro."

 

No. BUT in theory a lens marked "Macro" should give better image quality at magnifications from 1:1 to 1:10 than a lens not marked "Macro." Practice sometimes fails to agree with theory.

 

No. To a very good first approximation, DOF is controlled by magnification and aperture. Lens design has nothing to do with it.

 

Yes. BUT in theory a lens marked "Macro" should give worse image quality at magnifications lower than 1:10 than a lens not marked "Macro." Practice sometimes fails to agree with theory.

 

Morey, you still haven't told us what you want to accomplish. General answers to general questions may not fit your situation.

 

There are specialized macro lenses intended for use at magnifications above 1:1. They do better there than lenses intended for use at lower magnifications and are useless at normal distances.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan