Been looking for a way to shoot the MPE-65 lens at lower than 1:1 magnification that is it's normal minimum. Tried mounting an old 1.4X teleconverter on the front of the lens using a camping mat tube and found it sort of works. Might make a useful emergency add-on when you are faced with a larger subject than expected. Haven't worked out yet what the max mag yet is.
A surprisingly clean result and something for the thrifty and DIYers! Is this the best optical solution that you've come up with so far for <1:1 or just the cheapest/most convenient? Great work and thanks for posting.
Paul
would be interesting to see if any mag difference between brands on same type camera FF, 1.3 1.5 or 1.6 . Im sure Brians were with FF where mine are with 1.6 CF
Paul not exactly tried many alternatives except I did try a cheap screw on wide angle converter and that would not focus. Just happened to have this old pentax K mount TC hanging around and tried it - rather suprised it seemed to give a pretty good image.
DQE -think you would have to make an adapter from say a 58 mm filter holder thing superglued to a lens endcap which has had the centre removed. Not sure if you could make a sensible removable adapter for the MT-24 on the other end though. Suspect though I would probably be trying to shoot larger subjects in natural light.
I actually used to use these camping mat tubes routinely for reversing 50mm lenses onto my 105mm macro without any problems.The tube is just stuck together with duct tape on both sides of the join and you can carefully taper the tube if necessary.
Brian v.
Tom Hicks wrote:
would be interesting to see if any mag difference between brands on same type camera FF, 1.3 1.5 or 1.6 . Im sure Brians were with FF where mine are with 1.6 CF
Tom - wouldn't have thought the sensor size would affect the lens magnifications achieved but obviously does affect the frame coverage?
Mine were with a FF camera.
Thought it kind of amusing to be trying to find a way of getting less magnification for macro shooting
Brian v.
LordV wrote:
Tom - wouldn't have thought the sensor size would affect the lens magnifications achieved but obviously does affect the frame coverage?
Mine were with a FF camera.
Thought it kind of amusing to be trying to find a way of getting less magnification for macro shooting
Brian v.
Brian I guess I did word that wrong. We may find that different 1.4s give use different frame coverages like my 50 rev result did , some of which was quite extreme.
orionmystery wrote:
Great experiments and good news
So what mag are we talking about here?
Kurt on my setup seems to go from around 1:1 to nearly infinity with the lens set between 2x and 3x. willpost some more shots shortly.
Brian v.
Tom Hicks wrote:
Brian I guess I did word that wrong. We may find that different 1.4s give use different frame coverages like my 50 rev result did , some of which was quite extreme.
Tom suspect you are right, also I expect the distance from the back of the TC to the front of the MPE will affect it. Mine is a little off the front as the TC still has an old lever aperture actuator sticking out the back of it
mach250 wrote:
not understanding why these are interesting? is this lens only capable of high mag macro shots?
Yes this is a very specialized lens canon is the only one that makes anything like it. your focus distance is from around 1 inch to 4 inches thats it . The lens is for shots from 1 time life size to 5X
Tom - it's a komura telemore 95 II pentaxKmount fit- thinking about it I'm not sure what it's magnification is - possible it's a 2X.
I'll see what my canon fit Kenko 1.4X TC does.
Just tried the canon fit TC and it does not give the same focus range as the older komura TC, just a bit wider than without but certainly not any very long focus distances I saw with the komura.
Brian see what your best image is out of this setup , do you feel the last Dragon shot is as sharp as you feel this setup can do , and how far were you from it. this would be nice to have along with your MP it takes up less room in the pocket than say a 100 or 180 when less mag is needed.
Tom Hicks wrote:
Brian see what your best image is out of this setup , do you feel the last Dragon shot is as sharp as you feel this setup can do , and how far were you from it. this would be nice to have along with your MP it takes up less room in the pocket than say a 100 or 180 when less mag is needed.
With the shots I've taken so far with this TC, didn't think any were as sharp as I'd expect from Tamron 90mm lens, but they are fairly high ISO (ISO800) and the light was very dull (fairly heavy cloud). Didn't measure the focus distance but guessing around 8 to 12 inches in front of the lens. Will need to try some shots in better light and perhaps with flash to see how it goes.
This is pretty interesting. Too bad there isn't some way to mount the TC backwards between the lens and body....would probably give a similar effect?...but you'd lose all metering, etc, if you could even figure out a stable way of mounting it.
We may find that different 1.4s give use different frame coverages like my 50 rev result did , some of which was quite extreme.
