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Getting close with additional lenses: Part 2

For this series of tests I have used an old technique dating back to the film era using vintage lenses. This method uses a 200mm telephoto lens (in this case an M42 mount Takumar (Pentax) 200mm f5.6 lens) attached to the camera with a wide angle lens (a 24mm f2.8 OM mount and a 21mm f3.5 OM mount (both Olympus lenses)) reversed and attached to the front of the telephoto lens. This gives quite a powerful close-up combination as you will see. The subject matter is the same dead flower head as in the previous post or the steel ruler for estimating the magnification (all the values given are approximate):

First up is using the 24mm OM lens attached to the 200mm telephoto. In this first set the telephoto is set to infinity.

8x close up of the flower head using the 200mm lens at infinity with the 24mm lens
8x close up of the ruler using the 200mm lens at infinity with the 24mm lens
View of the setup using using the 200mm lens at infinity with the 24mm lens
View showing the closeness of the lens to the subject

In this second set the telephoto is set to its closest focus point (2.5m) – here I am just showing the ruler for the magnification:

View of the ruler showing the magnification has increased to about 9.5x

I then switched to the 21mm lens attached to the telephoto set to infinity focus. This has increased the magnification a little to the same as the 24mm on the telephoto set to 2.5m:

9.5x close up of the flower head using the 200mm lens at infinity with the 21mm lens.

The ruler showing the degree of enlargement is pretty much the same as the 24mm lens. Now I will show the modest improvement in magnification with the telephoto at 2.5m:

The ruler showing an enlargement of about 10.7x using the 21mm lens
View showing the 21mm lens is a bit closer to the subject than the 24mm

The final lens I wanted to check was using a 55mm Takumar lens attached to the 200mm lens in the same manner:

4.3x close up of the flower head using the 200mm lens at 2.5m with the 55mm lens
A ruler view of using the 200mm lens at 2.5m with the 55mm lens giving a 4.3x close up
This view shows how close the reversed 55mm lens is to the subject

Again a worthwhile exercise. To me this demonstrates that quite decent results can be obtained from using vintage lenses paired together providing care is taken although a continuous range of magnifications cannot be obtained. Practice and good technique is a pre-requisite!

Here is a summary table – note that these are approximate results for my lenses, camera and setup – yours may differ:

LensFocussingMagnification
80mm Macro Lensclosest focussing1x
80mm Macro with Raynox 250Closest focussing1.6x
Componon 50mmBellows 140mm2.4x
8x microscope objectiveBellows 140mm10x
200mm + 55mminfinity3.7x
200mm + 55mm2.5m4.3x
200mm +24mminfinity7.8x
200mm +24mm2.5m9.5x
200mm + 21mminfinity9.5x
200mm + 21mm2.5m10.7x
Table summarising magnification for different lens combinations