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Best lens for Macro work

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Ramesh Jai

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I shoot a lot of food adverts. Can anyone advice me on which macro lens is best suited for this type of work? I need to get really close shots of rice grains, cereals, etc.

Thanks in advance.
 
Our in house master photographer Hans Schlupp prefers to shoot all macro shots using the super sharp Tamron 90mm macro nikon mount. This lens beats all the competition hands down, Zeiss ZF, Nikon, and the lowly Canon.

Check it out at redgaterentals.com
 
I believe the Tamron Adaptall which is reported to be very good and used by wildlife photographers can also have a PL mount fitted. Les Bosher sells them with mounts Im told. I have Contax Zeiss 60mm and 100mm lenses. The Leica 60mm and 100mm are reportedly the best but don't do 1:1 which the Ziess will do.
 
The Tamaron was a very good lens for macro. Espically for it's day. The Contax 60 and 100mm macros which can take a Canon adapter are superb Zeiss optics. And of course the Leicas are well, Leicas. lol
 
Low cost high quality macro lens...

Low cost high quality macro lens...

Ramesh Jai said:
I shoot a lot of food adverts. Can anyone advice me on which macro lens is best suited for this type of work? I need to get really close shots of rice grains, cereals, etc.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

You can get close ratio shots at high T/stop if you gaffer tape two of your camera lenses together front to front, if you put a 75mm on the camera and put a 150mm in front of it backwards with the iris open you get 2:1 if you use another 75mm you get 1:1. To be sure you do not Vignette the 150mm should be a SLR lens, 2 1/4, or view camera lens. A 300mm view camera lens for 4x5 would work. You can leave the camera lens wide open and stop down the front lens as well, you can try it both ways to see which looks better.

To do HQ macro shots with a zoom on the camera you can use overhead projector lenses since they have a large diameter, you can also use aerial camera lenses as a HQ diopter lens.

I think the movie "The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)" was shot with a zoom lens with a viewcamera or similar lens in front of it. I think I talked to the cameraman on that film, or someone?, a long time ago about this and they seems to ack like it was some sort of "trade secret" but acknowledged that was how shots were done.

You want the lenses front to front since those are the ends where the rays are parallel.

Remember if you use extenstion tubes or bellows lenses that you need to adjust the f/ and T/stops, at 1:1 you loose two stops, i.e. f/5.6 becomes f/11.

If you use the two lenses front to front idea, be sure to stop down one of the lenses since the DOF is very short at ratios close to 1:1, in our scanner we need to control the focus to better than 0.001".
 
how many elements?

how many elements?

David Wyatt said:
How bout Master Primes with Master Diopters...that's a fairly awesome combination!
Click to expand...

How many elements are "Master Diopters"?

When you put a lens in front of your taking lens it should be as well corrected and flat field as the taking lens over the area covered.

When the prime lens is stopped down and you use a 1/2 diopter in front and the subject is 3-6 feet away or so the single lens diopter is acting like an f/32 or so single lens imaging lens.

As you get closer the f/ ratio needed for the diopter gets higher (like working closer than one foot). With stops past f/8 even a two lens diopter cannot be sharp or flat field enough to shoot larger than f/5.6 in the lens on the camera if you expect to get near full resolution center to corner flat field.

When you want to get a few inches from the subject the "diopter" needs about as many elements as the taking lens to get sharpness as close as that of taking lens.

The taking lens does not need 6 to 8 elements to shoot at f/11 three will do, so if you are at f/11 in the taking lens the diopter can have three elements, but if you open up to f/1.2 the diopter better have 7 or 8 elements to match the resolution since that is what is required in the taking lens and so in the diopter working at 1:1 to 1:2 ratios. Diopter with less than three elements will not be flat field, nor will they cover a wide filed without aberration. To get 4K resolution from center to the corners you need good optics.

Nocturnal Aerial reconnaissance lenses may be some of the sharpest for large openings and fast stops, some may have 6 to 8 elements, like an f/2.0 to 2.8 6inch or so.
 
Ramesh, I did some macro tests a while back with a bunch of Nikon AI-S primes and a Leica Elpro 2 close up attachment. The results were surprisingly good.
 
Thank you all. I really appreciate your response.

I should have been more specific with my query. I need suggestions for a macro lens with a PL mount. Master or Ultra primes are out of my budget range.

Thanks once again.
 
Oh, I see... perhaps you may want to get in touch with Daniel Reichenbach in Switzerland. He used to be a regular here, from the fast disappearing old guard. Search him up and PM or email him at work. He's a great guy and I'm sure he will be happy to help you.
 
I have a set of Zeiss standard primes T2.1 that are macros at 16, 24 and 32mm. PL
 
Hi Ramesh,

Most of what I do is table top,and I have a set of Leica VanDiemen PL macro's,60/100/135 mm.
They are excellent,but no longer made. Arri Media also did a rehousing of the same Leica glass
in the same focal lengths,I believe these are no longer available.
In short it looks like you will have to look for used lenses,if you want dedicated PL mount.
The VanDiemen usually go for around 3500/4500 GDP and the Arri Media are a similar price.
The problem is finding them.
I've heard very good reports of the Tamron,although I've never used it personally.
A company in the UK does a PL conversion,check out the following link, http://www.filmcamerakit.com/html/macro_lenses.htm
If you're not bothered about having infinity focus,then a PL adaptor is a good way to go,that way you can use something like the
Zeiss ZF 100mm F2 macro,the PL adaptor works like an extension tube.
I would suggest that you don't use a lens much shorter than 90/100 mm,to give yourself a little room for lighting.
Hope that helps.

Tom.
 
Arri do a 200mm macro lens that is good, although at T4.3 not fast. I believe (but I could be wrong) that it is re-housed Nikkor glass...
 
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