Equipment for extreme macro

oneofone25 wrote:

3D Gunner wrote:

"Extreme Macro" is more about skills than about equipment manufacturers.

Nikon makes equipment for any macro needs.

What does Nikon offer out in the field for 5x magnification? I am curious as I am always considering possibilities...

All sorts of things that you may not have heard of, or may not have considered using.

"Infinity" microscope objectives:

I'm especially fond of Nikon microscope objectives. I have some 20+ objectives for my pair of Nikon microscopes (curse you, Bay of E, for feeding my addiction) but honestly many objectives spend more time on my macro setups (bench and field) than on my microscopes. Some were literally purchased only for photography and don't fit my scopes.

If you want something high quality and easy to get on the used market, look at the CFI objectives. That's a relatively modern series of objectives: CFI stands for "chrome-free infinity". Objectives (from any maker, not just Nikon) come in two flavors:

• Infinity
• Something else, generally known either as "finite" or "fixed tube length". These came first, and were simply the way all objectives worked, until infinity objectives came along. Then, suddenly, we needed a term to describe objectives that weren't infinity.

I lave both kinds. My scopes are "finite", but I bought some infinity objectives to work a little differently. You can tuck one or two in your camera bag and hardly know they're there, until you need them.

An infinity objective turns a small object at the focal point into something infinitely far away. To get it back to being a small object, you use a lens around 200mm (on FF) or 135mm (on APS) to take the infinity image and turn it back into an image focused on your sensor. Sounds complicated, but it's not. You literally just use an adapter that screws into the front of your telephoto lens like a filter, and has a hole in the center where you screw a microscope objective. Then put the camera on a focusing rack and Bob's your uncle.

I just picked up a nice Nikon 5x Plan APO (good, sharp objective with excellent color fringing resistance, quite popular in "power macro" circles for $160 on the Bay of E. The adapter is around $30. A really respectable NiSi 180mm focusing rail is $129. You need a focusing rail for just about any 5x technique except for one I'll get into in a bit. Mine is a Novoflex, but seriously, the NiSi is better and cheaper. "Nofoflex" is German for "overrated".

You can get a little fancier and better and buy a "tube lens" that you mount in a "tube" (duh) and then attach your objective to. Thor Labs sells the ITL200 tube lens that is made for them by Nikon and is an excellent match to Nikon CFI objectives, but that little gem will set you back about $350 on the used market or $500 new. It's something to look into if you plan on acquiring a whole stable of objectives, like a 2.5x, 5x, and 10x set, or maybe going to 20x as you really get into this.

Finite microscope objectives and a bellows

For like a century, microscope objectives were designed to bring an image to focus on a plane where another set of lenses (an "ocular" or "eyepiece") would grab it and refocus it to your eye. They can just as easily bring that image into focus in your camera.

And for decades, the bellows was the major way of using serious macro lenses. Nikon made a line of compact bellows for 35mm gear. I own two of the Nikon PB-4 bellows, and I have owned a PB-6, but sold it. The PB-6 is newer, but I prefer the handling of the PB-4 and its tilt capability. You can use a bellows with a Nikon "bellows lens", an El-Nikkor enlarger lens, or Nikon's finite objectives. I do all three. Objectives deliver the highest quality results, so I'll touch on those first.

Objectives are optimized for one particular magnification, so you set your bellows to that length and then don't really touch it, except maybe for "bellows draw" focus stacking or to fine tune magnification. Literally they're so touchy that if I mount a 5x and set my bellows to 4x or 6x instead, the corner sharpness suffers and there's color fringing. But at 5x it's epic,

My objectives are mostly Nikon CF series, which means you set your bellows for 210mm. I have 2.5x, 5x, 10x, 20x, 40x, 100x, and 150x. The 100x and 150x are something you can't really use on the bellows, but I've had success from 2.5x to 40x.

You can pick up a used 5x and 10x for about $100 each. A 2.5x will set you back around $200 for reasons unknown. A used PB-4 or PB-6 for around $200. The adapter that connects the two for about $40 (I like a "cone type" adapter, those are around $25, but those are M42 so you need an M42 to Nikon F adapter to go with it, for another $15).

The PB-4 and PB-6 do not require you to buy a focus rail: they have one built in. In fact, you can focus by moving everything (camera, bellows, and objective) together using that built in rail or "rack", or you can focus by only moving the rear "standard" (the part that holds the camera) away from the subject, objective, and bulk of the bellows. This is called "bellows draw" focusing and it makes your stacked shots much better by eliminating any "fringing" artifacts. It's not a common technique, but it is an effective one.

Enlarger lenses and a bellows

That same PB-4 or PB-6 will let you mount up an enlarger lens. That's a lens built for "printing" film, but since film is pretty well dead, you can get them cheap used. A 50mm f/2.8 El-Nikkor costs around $50 used, and on the PB-4 can do magnifications from maybe 3x to 5x. Get an 85mm and 105mm El-Nikkor and you can cover the entire range from 1x to 5x.

Again, you can rack focus or draw focus.