Macro - to Fuji, or not to Fuji

Lovely shots, with a delightfully simple rig. I’ll have to look at the Raynox. And more importantly, improve my bug stalking skills!

The Fujifilm 90 and Rokinon 135/2 focus fairly close, with magnification of about 0.2 without any extension rings, diopters or TCs. I have used them for larger insects like butterflies, and the longer working distance is nice.

I haven’t tried diopters or extensions on those lenses (which will have less effect with such long lenses) yet. The Rokinon has a 77 mm filter thread, which makes fitting a diopters a bit  expensive. I need to try the Fujifilm 1.4 teleconverter with the Rokinon 135 (it will fit, unlike with the 90, but I don’t know if the IQ would remain superb, as it is now). If it does work, that’d inch me up to a mag of 0.28 before rings or diopters (and good working distance, close focus is ~80 cm), and also potentially give me a nice ~190/2.8 for other uses.

The Rokinon is superb optically (reviewers compare it favorably to Zeiss and Canon L), and it is less than $500, but it is of course manual focus and unstabilized. The huge 67.5 mm max aperture (compared to ~29 mm for the 80/2.8) makes it capable of lovely portraits (if you have a bit of room).

I also have and like the 60/2.4, but I often find the working distance too small (for my stalking skills), especially when trying to go beyond mag of 0.5 with rings. The 80/2.8 doesn’t improve working distance much, unfortunately.

I’m sure the 80 a fine lens but i can’t justify it with the 60 and 90 already in hand, and it is big and heavy for its size and brightness..

• almost twice the cost of the shorter and lower intrinsic mag but brighter 60, and almost 4 times the weight
• About 20 percent more expensive than and ~50 percent heavier than the longer and brighter 90, and
• almost as heavy as and more than twice as expensive as the longer and brighter (albeit much lower tech) 135. 

Choices.

Thanks again for the great pics.