I want to make macros out of old manual lenses by making tubes etc. My problem is I am not sure if I should for for an old prime 135mm fro 15$ or a 80-200 with a 2x extender accessory for 25-30$ (still negociating).

I don't have much money to spend on this project and when I offered 15 for the second lens he said he wanted closer to 30. Would it be worth the extra bt of money for an insane zoom 200 x 2 on mu43 + the extension + the 2x adapter, making it an incredibly close up lens (probably technically a microscope at this point :p) or should I just stick with a prime with the reasoning that primes will be sharper? (sharpness is important here since I will be loosing so much of it with the tube)

Thanks

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J.

E-PL1
14-42mm Oly kit lens
20mm f1.7 Panasonic pancake lens
EMA-1

For one thing, you're better off using wider lenses if you're going for higher magnification. The macro magnification ratios are inversely proportional to the lens focal length when using extension tubes, so you need fewer tubes with a wider lens. For example, a 50mm tube with a 25mm lens would give you 2:1 magnification, whereas the same 50mm tube with a 200mm lens only gives you 1:4 magnification. The same logic applies to reversing lenses - wider lenses achieve higher magnifications reversed than tele lenses.

Your best bet if you want to stay on the cheap is to either reverse one of your existing lenses (a cheap reversing adapter/ring is all you need), or to find a cheap 35-50mm lens and reverse it either using rings or tubes. In general terms, yes a prime would be sharped than a zoom, but it depends on the brand and on the lens. I suspect there isn't much difference in lenses in your price range, so don't worry about it too much. Just expect to deal with some aberrations, etc. in your photos.

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-Dragos
Panasonic GH1 + various lenses

oh wow, thank you! does reversing really work that well??

I am making my own tube, so tube length are not an issue since I am using PVC tubing that I will sand to make it mat.

So if I already have a 50mm, if I put a 10 cm custom tube, how I will be able to get right up there on it? So there would be zero advantage to having a lens that already has a long focal length?

Thanks for the help!

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J.

E-PL1
14-42mm Oly kit lens
20mm f1.7 Panasonic pancake lens
EMA-1

Yes, it does, but the image quality obviously depends on the lens quality. Some lenses are better than others, and reversing brings its own issues like really close working distance.

I'm not sure what that means. Can you rephrase your question?

Long focal length works against you in macro when reversing or using tubes. The only advantage you get is having a longer working distance, which may or may not be important to you.

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-Dragos
Panasonic GH1 + various lenses

So if I get longer working distances, but it zooms in... if I have a 100mm and a 50mm. if I put the 100mm on a 100mm tube and the 50mm on a 50mm tube, I should get 1x on both, but how close\far will I have to be with each respective lens to get that 1x magnification?

Thank you

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J.

E-PL1
14-42mm Oly kit lens
20mm f1.7 Panasonic pancake lens
EMA-1

Different lenses have different working distances (close focus distances), so I can't give you exact numbers. Figure in general the working distance on a 100mm lens would be about twice as long as that for a 50mm lens. The other advantage of the 50mm lens with a 50mm tube is significantly reduced loss of light vs. the longer lens with longer tubes (not to mention easier to carry). With the 100mm lens at the end of 100mm of tubes you'd have to provide much more lighting, or increase your ISO, in order to get good exposure. Moreover, the farther you get from the sensor, the more distortion you introduce (unless you use macro/tele converters with built-in correcting lenses), so that also works against using the 100m lens at the end of 100mm of tubes.

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-Dragos
Panasonic GH1 + various lenses

Thank you for all this information. This just cut the time sensitivity issue, I will abandon the negotiations for the 135mm and 80-200mm and stick with my minolta 50mm. I do not mind getting close in.

When they say that at 50mm tube on a 50mm lens you get 1x, is that the max? or can I just go closer?

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J.

E-PL1
14-42mm Oly kit lens
20mm f1.7 Panasonic pancake lens
EMA-1

You can add as many tubes as you want to get even higher magnifications, but as I wrote above there's diminishing returns in doing so. You lose light and you introduce distortions the more tubes you add. The nice thing about using the lens reversed is you avoid the loss of light due to the tubes. You can get roughly 1:1 with a reversed 50mm lens. There's a reverse adapter available for MFT cameras off eBay for pretty cheap, and it fits 52mm filter threads which is pretty common for 50mm lenses. It might fit yours so you can try it.

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-Dragos
Panasonic GH1 + various lenses

interesting, and if I add a tube on a reversed lens, will I get higher than 1:1 magnification?
Ideally I would like to get 3x or more (and I would be willing to suffer the loss of light for this kind of magnification)

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J.

E-PL1
14-42mm Oly kit lens
20mm f1.7 Panasonic pancake lens
EMA-1

can tubes be added to a reversed lens?

__________________
Please visit my blog!

J.

E-PL1
14-42mm Oly kit lens
20mm f1.7 Panasonic pancake lens
EMA-1