a little help or advice

jmlphoto · Post by **jmlphoto** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 2:42 pm

hey i just got ahold of this old 50mm lens and was wondering what i could do with it. it only cost me 1$ so it was a deal i couldnt refuse even if i have to use it with the old film camera it came with. i was thinking something with bellows. anything to get closer than the 1:1 limit on my 105mm macro would be helpfull.

sorry for the sideways pic

thanks

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:14 pm

Turn it around and stick it on the front of your 105. Assume it doesn't vignette too badly, the combo will give you 2.1X magnification onto the sensor when the 105 is set to infinity focus, and somewhat more than that when the 105 is set to focus closer.

Set the aperture ring to f/1.8 --- you want this added lens to stay wide open.

Or you can reverse the lens and stick it on the front of bellows. With a long extension, that'll get you even higher magnification.

--Rik

jmlphoto · Post by **jmlphoto** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:59 pm

hi Rik

I have tried reversing it on most of my lenses. And the results are not as good as you would think. There is a lot of black space wasted around the picture. The results from reversing the 18-55mm kit lens are actually better, but i feel i can get better results because the 50mm is a lot sharper that the 18-55mm. I was hoping the bellows would help me get to high magnifications. I don't plan on shooting anything that moves so thats good.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 8:28 pm

jmlphoto wrote:There is a lot of black space wasted around the picture.

Too bad. That's the vignetting I mentioned. It comes from having the entrance pupil of the long lens buried deep inside the lens, so that it's a long ways away from the exit pupil of the 55 mm f/1.8. There's no cure for that, unfortunately -- it's an unalterable feature of the lens designs.

But reversing the 55 on bellows should work fine. Depending on how that aperture control works, you might have to jury-rig something to make the lens actually stop down. Other than that, there's not much to go wrong. I have shot many, many macro pics with reversed 55 on bellows. In fact the cover photo (Fig.1) for this article was done that way.

--Rik