M43 flexibility for Macro photography with Oly 60mm F2.8, extension tubes, raynox M-250 and MC-20 TC

RobPNth wrote:

What brand of 46-37 mm step-down ring did you use? I have struggled to find one.

Hi Rob,

I’m using a step up ring with the clip on adapter of he Raynox. You can check the detail in the answer I made to Royd63uk above.

Cheers,

Julien

Astrotripper wrote:

Wow, this is just insane.

Amazing.

Had to pick up my jaw from the floor.

I recently picked up the 60mm and STF-8 and I do have the extension tubes and DCR-250. Man, this makes me want to go out and experiment and practice. Maybe one day I will be able to get images 1/10th as good as those

Thanks a lot Astrotripper, I really appreciate.

It’s not that hard! Just need some practice. I think the most important aspects to make nice macro shots are patience, good lighting with nice diffuser (you can just DIY, it’s quite easy) and good knowledge of color science. Think about it as a mini portrait studio, just with models a little less sexy! 

A big thanks to everyone for there kind words and support! I truly appreciate it!

Regards,

Julien

Royd63uk wrote:

Thank you Julien

I have the raynox and step ring already so will just have to buy the extension tubes.

Roy

Glad it could help you!

I think extension tubes are a great tool to have in your bag. It’s super cheap and can be used on many lenses. I’m actually using mine quite often on the 300mm F4 for near macro shots. Very useful for insects that are difficult to get close to, like butterflies, dragonflies and others. Just be careful with the cheap plastic tubes with big lenses, you can tell they could break very easily.

oneofone25 wrote:

junmoe62 wrote:

a grain of garnet sand, 1/4mm wide balanced on another grain of sand, both from Bandon, Oregon. I stacked 147 images for this shot in Helicon. Focus bracket mode works flawlessly with the setup, but you must use 1/10 for the focus bracket step setting. Image was cropped only to put into a portrait setup:

Hi Oneofone25,

I realized I forgot to ask you a question. I saw in your setup explanation that you us Helicon for your focus stacking. I personally use Affinity Photo. Have you ever tried it for stacking? If yes, do you see a difference in quality with a dedicated software like Helicon?

Thanks in advance.

regards,

julien

junmoe62 wrote:

oneofone25 wrote:

junmoe62 wrote:

a grain of garnet sand, 1/4mm wide balanced on another grain of sand, both from Bandon, Oregon. I stacked 147 images for this shot in Helicon. Focus bracket mode works flawlessly with the setup, but you must use 1/10 for the focus bracket step setting. Image was cropped only to put into a portrait setup:

Hi Oneofone25,

I realized I forgot to ask you a question. I saw in your setup explanation that you us Helicon for your focus stacking. I personally use Affinity Photo. Have you ever tried it for stacking? If yes, do you see a difference in quality with a dedicated software like Helicon?

Thanks in advance.

regards,

julien

I have not used Affinity Photo before.  I do not own Photoshop either, so I am unsure how anything compares with the Helicon, aside from it working better than the Olympus software in the camera - but that may just be because I am stacking more images than just 15...

I personally have no issues with the Helicon and have been using it for my snowflake photography for three years now.

junmoe62 wrote:

oneofone25 wrote:

junmoe62 wrote:

Hi everyone,

I’ve been a longtime reader and member of DPreview, but it is actually my first time posting on the forum.

The forum has been of tremendous help and a great inspiration through my photography journey and has been invaluable in my learning of the craft, so I’d be very glad to participate in helping others by sharing with you some of my findings/opinions.

Also, I know many of you are truly talented and knowledgeable photographers, so it’d be really appreciated to have some feedback on the pictures I’m going to share.

The gear I’m using for true macro is primarily the EM1 X (sometimes the EM1 II) with Olympus 60mm F2.8 macro, this gives up to 2x magnification in FF equivalence.

If I need more magnification, my first pick is adding the Raynox M-250 (DCR-250) diopter in front of the lens. It is a fantastic option, since it just takes a second to clip in front of the lens, it doesn’t loose too much light, and to my eye it doesn’t seem to degrade the picture quality (maybe just a tiny bit of chromatic aberration in some case, but that’s really neat picking).

From there, if I need more magnification I have different options. I an add extension tubes to the mix, or I can remove the raynox M-250 and use 2x 10mm extension tubes with the Olympus MC20 2x Teleconverter. The latter actually yields quite impressive results with the 60mm F2.8 macro. It makes you loose 2 stops of light but makes you jump straight to a little over 4x magnification (FF Eq.). You do lose a little in IQ but it is still impressively good. I would even dare say that the IQ loss is less noticeable than on the 300mm F4 or 40-150mm F2.8. That may be due to the close focus distance and the impressive 60mm F2.8 microcontrast.

Then, if you want to go crazy and need even more macro power, you can go 2x 10mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250. From there you can definitely tell it does start to affect the IQ, but still perfectly useable in my opinion. Finally, you can reach about 8x (FF Eq.) magnification I believe (don’t quote me on that, I’m not totally sure but that’s definitely a lot, just a little less than the 10x I have with the Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5x-5x macro) with the combo 2x 10mm extension tubes + 16mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250. With this last setup, that’s the limit of usability, I think, regarding IQ, light loss and the fact that it’s the maximum number of extension tube you can use before the focus bracketing starts failing.

I feel this setup is really awesome. You can actually go from infinity to up to about 8x macro with 1 lens, while still having access to focus bracketing and AF!!! I’m not sure but to my knowledge I don’t see anything else that can do that. You can surely find options that will provide better result at specific tasks, like using bigger sensor with motorized bellows and microscope lenses, but you can hardly consider that a hassle free, convenient, flexible, lightweight, compact, run & gun setup...

Here are some picture taken with this setup (Not full resolution) :

There it is for today!

I hope it can be helpful to someone.

I’ll try to make a topic about the 300mm F4 Pro for closeup photography and also the Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5x-5x on M43 and show the difference with the 60mm F2.8 when I find the time.

If you like the pictures I shared and you have some time at hand, you can have a look at some of my work on 500px at : https://500px.com/julienmonborgne

I post regularly on that platform.

Thanks for your time.

Julien

Julien-

It truly is a great setup. I have been using similar to what you do for the last year. I use the Olympus EM1 Mark 2, the MC-20 teleconverter, a 16mm PIXCO brand extension tube and I scraped out some of the plastic inside. Using the 16mm saves 4mm of void space compared to using two 10mm tubes, and allows for less light loss. The 16mm pixco is the only one that I have found will work out of about 5 different extension tubes. I then hook up the 60mm macro lens and a Raynox 202 or the 505. WIth the 505, I acquire about 9x magnification on the Micro 43 system - about 18x equivalent on full-frame. Here are some of the shots I have done, and a pic of my setup:

a grain of garnet sand, 1/4mm wide balanced on another grain of sand, both from Bandon, Oregon. I stacked 147 images for this shot in Helicon. Focus bracket mode works flawlessly with the setup, but you must use 1/10 for the focus bracket step setting. Image was cropped only to put into a portrait setup:

The head of a wheel bug - used HIGH RESOLUTION MODE for this stack of 37 images. I use Olympus Capture to move my focus little by little through the object. High resolution mode does not work very well with my sand pictures but works with insects as long as they are dead. Go figure....

2mm field of view

Scales from the wing of a Luna Moth. Image was cropped by 50% to show texture. Less than 1mm field of view

the foot of a Robber Fly. 1.5mm field of view

My pet jumping spider with it's prey. This is a live shot (for the spider at least!!!)

210 images stacked

Hi oneofone25

Thanks for your comment! You’ve posted some great pictures that showcase perfectly the strengths of the setup!!

That’s a great idea to modify the 16mm tube! Since I have a spare one, I might have a try at it someday!

I’ve never tried the Raynox 505, but the pictures you’re showing definitely make me want to give it a go! You can see take the IQ starts taking a hit at those crazy magnifications, but that’s definitely way better than I though it would be!! That’s absolutely usable!

Thanks for sharing and for opening my eyes!

Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

Cheers,

Julien.

Thanks Julien - it truly is a blessing to have this system.  I will say, using a modified 16mm does really help with reducing the light loss I feel you can get with the two 10mm tubes. It's funny - before this setup I used to use the Raynox 505 with only the 16mm extension tube and the Olympus 60mm macro and felt that it was very difficult to use and provided for a challenge.  Now with the MC-20 attached, I feel that the lens provides some of the sharpest images I can come up with on my macro setup....

baby phidippus audax jumping spider - 1.5mm long

garnet sand grain at 1/4mm width

I used the Raynox 202 for this one:

I used High Resolution mode for the images used in this stack....this is just under 1/2mm field of view

Amazing photos here...I never would have thought that Olympus’s TCs would work with the 60mm F2.8 Macro lens (with extension tubes) all while retaining auto focus. I have never heard of anyone else doing this. Where or how did you come up with the idea to try 60mm Macro with the Olympus TC?

oneofone25 wrote:

junmoe62 wrote:

oneofone25 wrote:

junmoe62 wrote:

Hi everyone,

I’ve been a longtime reader and member of DPreview, but it is actually my first time posting on the forum.

The forum has been of tremendous help and a great inspiration through my photography journey and has been invaluable in my learning of the craft, so I’d be very glad to participate in helping others by sharing with you some of my findings/opinions.

Also, I know many of you are truly talented and knowledgeable photographers, so it’d be really appreciated to have some feedback on the pictures I’m going to share.

The gear I’m using for true macro is primarily the EM1 X (sometimes the EM1 II) with Olympus 60mm F2.8 macro, this gives up to 2x magnification in FF equivalence.

If I need more magnification, my first pick is adding the Raynox M-250 (DCR-250) diopter in front of the lens. It is a fantastic option, since it just takes a second to clip in front of the lens, it doesn’t loose too much light, and to my eye it doesn’t seem to degrade the picture quality (maybe just a tiny bit of chromatic aberration in some case, but that’s really neat picking).

From there, if I need more magnification I have different options. I an add extension tubes to the mix, or I can remove the raynox M-250 and use 2x 10mm extension tubes with the Olympus MC20 2x Teleconverter. The latter actually yields quite impressive results with the 60mm F2.8 macro. It makes you loose 2 stops of light but makes you jump straight to a little over 4x magnification (FF Eq.). You do lose a little in IQ but it is still impressively good. I would even dare say that the IQ loss is less noticeable than on the 300mm F4 or 40-150mm F2.8. That may be due to the close focus distance and the impressive 60mm F2.8 microcontrast.

Then, if you want to go crazy and need even more macro power, you can go 2x 10mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250. From there you can definitely tell it does start to affect the IQ, but still perfectly useable in my opinion. Finally, you can reach about 8x (FF Eq.) magnification I believe (don’t quote me on that, I’m not totally sure but that’s definitely a lot, just a little less than the 10x I have with the Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5x-5x macro) with the combo 2x 10mm extension tubes + 16mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250. With this last setup, that’s the limit of usability, I think, regarding IQ, light loss and the fact that it’s the maximum number of extension tube you can use before the focus bracketing starts failing.

I feel this setup is really awesome. You can actually go from infinity to up to about 8x macro with 1 lens, while still having access to focus bracketing and AF!!! I’m not sure but to my knowledge I don’t see anything else that can do that. You can surely find options that will provide better result at specific tasks, like using bigger sensor with motorized bellows and microscope lenses, but you can hardly consider that a hassle free, convenient, flexible, lightweight, compact, run & gun setup...

Here are some picture taken with this setup (Not full resolution) :

There it is for today!

I hope it can be helpful to someone.

I’ll try to make a topic about the 300mm F4 Pro for closeup photography and also the Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5x-5x on M43 and show the difference with the 60mm F2.8 when I find the time.

If you like the pictures I shared and you have some time at hand, you can have a look at some of my work on 500px at : https://500px.com/julienmonborgne

I post regularly on that platform.

Thanks for your time.

Julien

Julien-

It truly is a great setup. I have been using similar to what you do for the last year. I use the Olympus EM1 Mark 2, the MC-20 teleconverter, a 16mm PIXCO brand extension tube and I scraped out some of the plastic inside. Using the 16mm saves 4mm of void space compared to using two 10mm tubes, and allows for less light loss. The 16mm pixco is the only one that I have found will work out of about 5 different extension tubes. I then hook up the 60mm macro lens and a Raynox 202 or the 505. WIth the 505, I acquire about 9x magnification on the Micro 43 system - about 18x equivalent on full-frame. Here are some of the shots I have done, and a pic of my setup:

a grain of garnet sand, 1/4mm wide balanced on another grain of sand, both from Bandon, Oregon. I stacked 147 images for this shot in Helicon. Focus bracket mode works flawlessly with the setup, but you must use 1/10 for the focus bracket step setting. Image was cropped only to put into a portrait setup:

The head of a wheel bug - used HIGH RESOLUTION MODE for this stack of 37 images. I use Olympus Capture to move my focus little by little through the object. High resolution mode does not work very well with my sand pictures but works with insects as long as they are dead. Go figure....

2mm field of view

Scales from the wing of a Luna Moth. Image was cropped by 50% to show texture. Less than 1mm field of view

the foot of a Robber Fly. 1.5mm field of view

My pet jumping spider with it's prey. This is a live shot (for the spider at least!!!)

210 images stacked

Hi oneofone25

Thanks for your comment! You’ve posted some great pictures that showcase perfectly the strengths of the setup!!

That’s a great idea to modify the 16mm tube! Since I have a spare one, I might have a try at it someday!

I’ve never tried the Raynox 505, but the pictures you’re showing definitely make me want to give it a go! You can see take the IQ starts taking a hit at those crazy magnifications, but that’s definitely way better than I though it would be!! That’s absolutely usable!

Thanks for sharing and for opening my eyes!

Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

Cheers,

Julien.

Thanks Julien - it truly is a blessing to have this system. I will say, using a modified 16mm does really help with reducing the light loss I feel you can get with the two 10mm tubes. It's funny - before this setup I used to use the Raynox 505 with only the 16mm extension tube and the Olympus 60mm macro and felt that it was very difficult to use and provided for a challenge. Now with the MC-20 attached, I feel that the lens provides some of the sharpest images I can come up with on my macro setup....

I do agree with you, at that point, the only other way to have this kind of magnification or more with good results is microscope lenses. But that’s an entirely different setup...

I just modified my spare 16mm tube. I’ll have to give it a try when I find the time!

Thanks again for your insight!

—

If you are interested in discovering some of my work feel free to check and follow me on 500px at : https://500px.com/julienmonborgne

mwhyte wrote:

Amazing photos here...I never would have thought that Olympus’s TCs would work with the 60mm F2.8 Macro lens (with extension tubes) all while retaining auto focus. I have never heard of anyone else doing this. Where or how did you come up with the idea to try 60mm Macro with the Olympus TC?

Hi mwhyte,

Thank you!

Well, I‘m not much of a tech guy, but basically the TC is a device that’s cropping the central portion of the field of view, so it would make sense for it to work with other lenses, at least those who can keep focusing far enough with an extension tube on (some lenses will focus so close With extension tubes that their focus plane will be inside of the lens). So the idea was just to find a way to mount it on the lens. The extension tubes were the easiest and most straight forward way to achieve that. Since I had tubes, I just tried and luckily it worked!

Oneofone25 seems to have been doing that for awhile now, so he should deserve more credit that I do!

There’s another discovery that I made, I don’t know if it has already been discussed on the forum, but to my surprise, the DXO optical correction module of the Olympus 60mm F2.8 macro lens keeps working with the TC on!! That’s really unexpected, because on the 40-150 F2.8 and the 300mm F4, before DXO updated the lens correction modules to accept the TC, You were losing the optical corrections for those 2 lenses while using the TCs.
Anyways... It only matters if you’re using DXO softwares, but I though it was a nice plus!

I shoot small native blooms with an E-M1, 60mm f2.8 macro and tripod. I have enough trouble keeping the blooms still in the slightest of breezes. I can't imaging how you manage to get those great pics you have of those little scurrying blighters you photograph.

John K wrote:

junmoe62 wrote:

The gear I’m using for true macro is primarily the EM1 X (sometimes the EM1 II) with Olympus 60mm F2.8 macro, this gives up to 2x magnification in FF equivalence.

No. Cropping an image, in post or with a smaller than full frame sensor, creates an enlargement but does not change the magnification of the subject that was projected onto the sensor. You're still shooting at 1x. FWIW: I shoot with an APS-C sensor.

If I need more magnification, my first pick is adding the Raynox M-250 (DCR-250) diopter in front of the lens. It is a fantastic option, since it just takes a second to clip in front of the lens, it doesn’t loose too much light, and to my eye it doesn’t seem to degrade the picture quality (maybe just a tiny bit of chromatic aberration in some case, but that’s really neat picking).

With a diopter you won't lose any light at all -that's one of the advantages that diopters have over extension tubes. With a high quality diopter like the Raynox series you shouldn't notice any decrease in image quality. It's a myth that adding more glass degrades an image (adding cheap glass will, so it's one of those things where you get what you pay for).

From there, if I need more magnification I have different options. I an add extension tubes to the mix, or I can remove the raynox M-250 and use 2x 10mm extension tubes with the Olympus MC20 2x Teleconverter. The latter actually yields quite impressive results with the 60mm F2.8 macro. It makes you loose 2 stops of light but makes you jump straight to a little over 4x magnification (FF Eq.). You do lose a little in IQ but it is still impressively good. I would even dare say that the IQ loss is less noticeable than on the 300mm F4 or 40-150mm F2.8. That may be due to the close focus distance and the impressive 60mm F2.8 microcontrast.

Macro lenses are designed to be sharp at minimum focus, primes and telephoto zoom lenses are designed to be sharp at infinity. With a teleconverter as long as the quality of the glass is good you should get good results from it.

Doubt you're actually getting 4x out of all that though

Then, if you want to go crazy and need even more macro power, you can go 2x 10mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250. From there you can definitely tell it does start to affect the IQ, but still perfectly useable in my opinion. Finally, you can reach about 8x (FF Eq.) magnification I believe (don’t quote me on that, I’m not totally sure but that’s definitely a lot, just a little less than the 10x I have with the Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5x-5x macro) with the combo 2x 10mm extension tubes + 16mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250. With this last setup, that’s the limit of usability, I think, regarding IQ, light loss and the fact that it’s the maximum number of extension tube you can use before the focus bracketing starts failing.

Again I think you're including the crop of the sensor in the mag. Big difference between cropping an image to make the subject look larger on a screen or a print and actually magnifying it.

You can actually go from infinity ... to about 8x macro with 1 lens, while still having access to focus bracketing and AF!!!

It's the AF part that tells me you're not really at 8x. AF isn't going to place the focus where you really need it once you get above 1x with most cameras.

I’m not sure but to my knowledge I don’t see anything else that can do that. You can surely find options that will provide better result at specific tasks, like using bigger sensor with motorized bellows and microscope lenses, but you can hardly consider that a hassle free, convenient, flexible, lightweight, compact, run & gun setup...

Agreed, except for the magnification. Depth of field (once you get to 1x and higher mag) is strictly a function of Fstop and magnification. Nothing else matters, not even the focal length of the lens or the working distance to the subject. One of the benefits of shooting with a smaller than full frame sensor is that the subject will look larger in the final image because the scene is cropped, and that allows you to fill the frame at lower magnifications than shooting full frame. Lower mag = more depth of field. It's the reason why I'm shooting with an APS-C camera (Canon 80D) instead of shooting full frame.

You can also get the exact same effect by shooting full frame and cropping in post. If the price ever drops I'd consider buying a 5dsr and crop its 50MP full frame images down to a 1.6x crop (roughly an 18MP image I think).

Here are some picture taken with this setup (Not full resolution) :

The images all looked really nice!

I’ll try to make a topic about the 300mm F4 Pro for closeup photography and also the Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5x-5x on M43 and show the difference with the 60mm F2.8 when I find the time.

Not sure about your 60mm macro lens, but Canon's 60mm EF-S macro, like all macro lenses that have internal focusing (lens doesn't change shade when you turn the focus ring), loses a lot of focal length at minimum focus and is a 37mm lens when set to 1x. So it only takes 37mm of extension to get to 2x. One thing you might wanna try is add some extension tubes to your 60mm macro, set it to minimum focus and photograph a metric ruler, and then divide the width of your sensor by the number of millimeters in the photo to get the magnification. You can do that with all of the setups you mentioned to see what the actual magnification is.

Can't stress enough that there's no such thing as "full frame magnification equivalent".

If you like the pictures I shared and you have some time at hand, you can have a look at some of my work on 500px at : https://500px.com/julienmonborgne

I post regularly on that platform.

Thanks for the link -following.

I post there as well: https://500px.com/dalantech

actually, with the Olympus 60mm macro lens, the Raynox 250 and the Olympus MC-20 teleconverter attached with two 10mm extension tubes, he is likely getting more than 4x true magnification.  Trust me - I would know.  So, the sensor usable area is 17.3mm.  I took my setup which actually uses less extension tube space (one 16mm instead of two 10mm), and attached my same Raynox 250 and have the 60mm macro set at 1:1.  This is the image I get of the millimeter marks on a ruler - right at 4mm.  If you take the 17.3 and divide by the 4mm you get 4.325 magnification.  His is likely slightly more due to the 4mm more of extension tubes between the teleconverter and the 60mm macro lens.

Now, here is my setup - I use the Raynox 505 almost exclusively for my macro shots.

Olympus EM1 mark 2, MC-20 teleconverter, PIXCO 16mm extension tube, 60mm macro lens and then the Raynox 505.  I am showing LESS THAN 2mm for a single shot with my setup.  Let's say it's 1.8mm since you cannot see either of the two lines on either side.

That's 9.6x magnification.  I can verify that as if I use a 10x microscope objective at the correct MM away from the sensor, I get a similar field of view in my frame.

tenthwashfree wrote:

Thank you for posting, this is truly outstanding work.

Did you use any additional lighting for these, they are very well lit.

I love the photo of the little guy trying to reach for the sky )

Hi tenthwashfree,

thanks a lot for the praise!

Yes, I use flash or continuous lighting 99.9999% of the time. I rarely rely solely on natural light, not that you can’t have nice results with natural light, but flashes allow you much more control on where you want the light to be, freezing motion and so on. And when you reach very high magnifications, that becomes almost mandatory, unless you are photographing very still subjects in a dead still environment. When I’m talking about still environment, I’m not kidding!! To give you an example, I’m living at the 16th floor of a building in a very busy city and when I’m working with the highest magnifications of the setup, the movement of the building itself starts showing! You cannot walk nearby the camera or it will introduce motion blur, or artifacts in a focus stacking! 😂 I need to stay very still and I’m sometimes afraid of breathing!!! 😆 What a tough life!! 🤪

Concerning the picture, I’m actually glad you and others like it because that’s also one of my favorite, funnily that’s one of the least rated picture I’ve posted on 500px... I guess tastes are different depending on the audience...

I titled that shot “The ballet Dancer” and I have another one from the same day that I called  “The Gaol Keeper”! I guess I was getting ready for the Tokyo Olympics add campaign, but it seems to be another failure of mine...

here is the shot :

Anyways, I’m glad you could find some interest it this thread.

Cheers,

Julien.

BobT3218 wrote:

I shoot small native blooms with an E-M1, 60mm f2.8 macro and tripod. I have enough trouble keeping the blooms still in the slightest of breezes. I can't imaging how you manage to get those great pics you have of those little scurrying blighters you photograph.

Hi Bob,

thanks,

Yes, wind is one of maco photographers’ worst enemy!

Do you use flash? It would help for motion blur at least.

Cheers,

julien

John K wrote:

junmoe62 wrote:

The gear I’m using for true macro is primarily the EM1 X (sometimes the EM1 II) with Olympus 60mm F2.8 macro, this gives up to 2x magnification in FF equivalence.

No. Cropping an image, in post or with a smaller than full frame sensor, creates an enlargement but does not change the magnification of the subject that was projected onto the sensor. You're still shooting at 1x. FWIW: I shoot with an APS-C sensor.

If I need more magnification, my first pick is adding the Raynox M-250 (DCR-250) diopter in front of the lens. It is a fantastic option, since it just takes a second to clip in front of the lens, it doesn’t loose too much light, and to my eye it doesn’t seem to degrade the picture quality (maybe just a tiny bit of chromatic aberration in some case, but that’s really neat picking).

With a diopter you won't lose any light at all -that's one of the advantages that diopters have over extension tubes. With a high quality diopter like the Raynox series you shouldn't notice any decrease in image quality. It's a myth that adding more glass degrades an image (adding cheap glass will, so it's one of those things where you get what you pay for).

From there, if I need more magnification I have different options. I an add extension tubes to the mix, or I can remove the raynox M-250 and use 2x 10mm extension tubes with the Olympus MC20 2x Teleconverter. The latter actually yields quite impressive results with the 60mm F2.8 macro. It makes you loose 2 stops of light but makes you jump straight to a little over 4x magnification (FF Eq.). You do lose a little in IQ but it is still impressively good. I would even dare say that the IQ loss is less noticeable than on the 300mm F4 or 40-150mm F2.8. That may be due to the close focus distance and the impressive 60mm F2.8 microcontrast.

Macro lenses are designed to be sharp at minimum focus, primes and telephoto zoom lenses are designed to be sharp at infinity. With a teleconverter as long as the quality of the glass is good you should get good results from it.

Doubt you're actually getting 4x out of all that though

Then, if you want to go crazy and need even more macro power, you can go 2x 10mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250. From there you can definitely tell it does start to affect the IQ, but still perfectly useable in my opinion. Finally, you can reach about 8x (FF Eq.) magnification I believe (don’t quote me on that, I’m not totally sure but that’s definitely a lot, just a little less than the 10x I have with the Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5x-5x macro) with the combo 2x 10mm extension tubes + 16mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250. With this last setup, that’s the limit of usability, I think, regarding IQ, light loss and the fact that it’s the maximum number of extension tube you can use before the focus bracketing starts failing.

Again I think you're including the crop of the sensor in the mag. Big difference between cropping an image to make the subject look larger on a screen or a print and actually magnifying it.

You can actually go from infinity ... to about 8x macro with 1 lens, while still having access to focus bracketing and AF!!!

It's the AF part that tells me you're not really at 8x. AF isn't going to place the focus where you really need it once you get above 1x with most cameras.

I’m not sure but to my knowledge I don’t see anything else that can do that. You can surely find options that will provide better result at specific tasks, like using bigger sensor with motorized bellows and microscope lenses, but you can hardly consider that a hassle free, convenient, flexible, lightweight, compact, run & gun setup...

Agreed, except for the magnification. Depth of field (once you get to 1x and higher mag) is strictly a function of Fstop and magnification. Nothing else matters, not even the focal length of the lens or the working distance to the subject. One of the benefits of shooting with a smaller than full frame sensor is that the subject will look larger in the final image because the scene is cropped, and that allows you to fill the frame at lower magnifications than shooting full frame. Lower mag = more depth of field. It's the reason why I'm shooting with an APS-C camera (Canon 80D) instead of shooting full frame.

You can also get the exact same effect by shooting full frame and cropping in post. If the price ever drops I'd consider buying a 5dsr and crop its 50MP full frame images down to a 1.6x crop (roughly an 18MP image I think).

Here are some picture taken with this setup (Not full resolution) :

The images all looked really nice!

I’ll try to make a topic about the 300mm F4 Pro for closeup photography and also the Laowa 25mm F2.8 2.5x-5x on M43 and show the difference with the 60mm F2.8 when I find the time.

Not sure about your 60mm macro lens, but Canon's 60mm EF-S macro, like all macro lenses that have internal focusing (lens doesn't change shade when you turn the focus ring), loses a lot of focal length at minimum focus and is a 37mm lens when set to 1x. So it only takes 37mm of extension to get to 2x. One thing you might wanna try is add some extension tubes to your 60mm macro, set it to minimum focus and photograph a metric ruler, and then divide the width of your sensor by the number of millimeters in the photo to get the magnification. You can do that with all of the setups you mentioned to see what the actual magnification is.

Can't stress enough that there's no such thing as "full frame magnification equivalent".

If you like the pictures I shared and you have some time at hand, you can have a look at some of my work on 500px at : https://500px.com/julienmonborgne

I post regularly on that platform.

Thanks for the link -following.

I post there as well: https://500px.com/dalantech

Hi John,

Thanks for your post and bringing a more accurate and scientific approach to my claims.

You’re absolutely right on (Almost) everything you said (Your assumptions about the actual “real magnification’” of the setup were not correct), so I’m glad you could correct the errors.
It seems I got it all reversed! When I was talking about FF Eq. magnification I should have used the word “crop” and about the TC I should have used the term “magnification” instead of “crop”... my bad...

As I’ve previously stated and as you can see, I’m not much of a tech guy.

After, to be fair, English is not my mother tongue. What I actually meant was that, for example, the framing for 1x magnification lens on M43 is similar to the framing of a 2x magnification lens on a FF. Meaning that the composition of the picture would be the same. I never meant that the IQ and DOF of the picture would actually be the same between and 1x M43 setup and a 2x FF setup. I thought that it was obvious to most.

So indeed it was a shortcut that could be confusing, I agree. But then, I guess many here on the forum come from all around the world and don’t necessarily have the perfect vocabulary (like myself), probably don’t have a PhD in science and optics (me included), are there to relax and don’t always want to keep everything so serious and scientifically accurate in all the phrasing (I’m guilty too).
When you think about it, even on a daily basis we always use shortcuts in our languages that don’t always represent things in a scientific accurate way. If I say “my car is red” it’s not actually accurate, but you get the idea. I should probably say something more like “when my car is lit by a light source that have about the same properties than the sunlight in midday, its surfaces only reflect to my eyes the wavelengths that correspond to the red spectrum of light”. (Please I hope no one will correct me on that, I probably made big mistakes in the formulation and the science!! 🤣) I hope you get my point on this one!

Regarding the diopter, I know that the theory says that you do not use light, but in practice, I always find myself having to adjust the power of the flashes up when I put it on. That’s probably due to something else, like inverse square law or the position of the light source relative to the subject and front of the lens, I don’t know, but the fact is that it somehow does have an impact.

And finally about the maximum magnification of my setup which consists of 2x 10mm extension tubes + 16mm extension tubes + MC20 TC + Raynox M-250, I made the test you requested since I don’t want you to think I’m here to spread misinformation It fills the width of the frame with about 3mm. So 17.3 / 3 = 5.76 magnification. So when I said that the setup gave 8x FF Eq. magnification (by which I meant same framing than 8x mag on FF), I was actually understating the numbers. Let’s round out to 5.5x which gives the same framing than 11x on FF. But let’s make it 10x for safety purposes...

I really hope you won’t take offense on anything I said, that’s the last of my attempt. Maybe my lack of proper language might make me sound rude, but that definitely not what I’m aiming for.

Thanks for your insight

regards,

julien