Bellows solutions for EOS

ottl · Post by **ottl** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 3:46 pm

Hi. I haven`t been around for a while so nobody probably remembers

...

I devoted most of this summer`s photography to landscape work. But now I`d like to boost my macro skills, too

I currently have an EF 50/2.5 Compact Macro lens and a 12mm extension tube which in combination give me a max ratio of about 0.72x (on a film body that is) This was ample for my style of close-ups and I enjoy the image quality this lens can give.

Now I want to explore the really small world. And I`ve come to the conclusion that what I want is a bellows unit. The only bellows unit that I could find that has the contacts to use EF lenses with auto aperture control is made by Novoflex. It seems a neat design but is 500€ as far as I remember... not very affordable to me, anyway.

Q#1: has anyone used the Novoflex Auto Bellows? Was it good? Or do you know another manufacturer that makes something similar for less $$$?

Q#2: Another option would be to use a non-auto bellows with a manual lens, e.g. an enlarger lens. Sure, I could save some €€ but would it actually be workable in the end? Metering? I could probably use it only on a tripod, even with flash as the main light source cause the viewfinder will get very dark when I stop down and I will not be able to assess focus any more

Q#3: Do you think I could make a home-brew auto bypass for a manual bellows using two cheapo Kenko extension tubes on each end of the bellow and connecting their contacts with a cable. Would this work if I get the contacts right? Any idea how to keep such a contraption light-tight?

Or should I forget about all that BS and buy myself some more extension tubes? (actually I`ve tried about 60mm of tubes on a manual (screwmount!) body and a 50mm lens. It felt terribly awkward to mount and dismount them to vary magnification

And the results were shockingly awful

Q#4: lighting: How should I place the flash head using a bellows? Close to the lens or away from it?

BTW I know this is a bit long for a forum post and you deserve a small prize for reading it through. But please reply if you have experience or knowledge about any of the issues mentioned above. It would be a great help to me

nzmacro · Post by **nzmacro** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 4:07 pm

Howdy M8t

always good to see you.

Ok, take a look a the ratio from Mark's shot before you decide anything. Have a good look at the specs he has for this setup

http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... .php?t=576

Now would you be happy with that ratio and quality, I certainly would Ott.

I have not used any EOS system in my life, I stopped at the FD bellows and lenses. So I can't help there at all. Mike was getting good ratios and quality using the Novoflex reverse ring adaptor for sure. So yes, that works well.

Lets hope Charles or some of the others can help you out with the EOS bellows M8t. Charles also uses an enlarging lens for his work sometimes.

What about reversing a lens on lens Ott, thats another option, works well my friend.

Heres a shot of how I used a Nikon at one time

Danny.

ottl · Post by **ottl** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 4:21 pm

Yep Mark has a nice new setup up`n`running but I don`t think a teleconverter will fit a 50mm lens very well optically even if I put tubes in between

A new lens I cannot afford at this point.

Reversing sounds good m8t but I`d need a zoom to vary mag. ratios. And my old 28-80 will probably not quite cut it cause of its poor construction..

thanks for a quick reply, m8t

nzmacro · Post by **nzmacro** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 4:26 pm

Well exactly what lenses do you have Ott. Have you tried something like a Nikon 6T or Canon 250D. They are excellent optics and we see those used with zoom lenses all the time M8t. Terri Norris, TomW and many more. Worth a look Ott and they are a fairly good price for the quality.

All the best.

Danny.

ottl · Post by **ottl** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 4:46 pm

I have a 50/2.5 macro, a cheapo 28-80/3.5-5.6, a 90-300/4.5-5.6 cheapo telezoom and a 28/2.8 that I should get back from warranty repair soon I hope. All Canon.

The next lens I`m probably gonna get is the 135/2.8 SF. When I get that I`ll have all my favourite focal lengths covered for landscape stuff. I need no more. I hate carrying stuff ya know. All three primes would have 52mm filter threads and thus take same accessories. my camera bag would be light, still with lots of quality images to be made. I`d lose the zooms, no regrets. My 28-80 has been collecting dust since June when I got the 50mm. All the world of difference in image quality m8t

But don`t have the €€€ for that last lens rite now.

Not sure how the macro setup is gonna fit in here. Hope to sort it out soon. As to close-up diopters such as the 6T or 500D, I hear they work better on telephoto lenses. So I don`t know if I want to get a 58mm one now when I`m thinking of ditching the lens that it would fit on

Also I would prefer keeping focal lengths short cause I love DOF. well don`t we all. I`m not afraid of short working distances. you kow I used to use that zoom at 28mm with the tube a lot. A 28mm lens is pretty close to the subject at 0.55x

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:24 am

Ott,

I'm going to reply in two parts to your questions. First, check this out for Q#3:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fet ... nified_p=1

___________________

Charlie

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 1:33 am

Ott,

Also I would prefer keeping focal lengths short cause I love DOF

There is no DOF advantage (in photomacrography) to using shorter focal length lenses!

(I know.... doesn't sound right, but it is true!)

At the same magnification, a shorter focal length gives the same DOF as a longer lens. (But the shorter focal length will require much less extension to get to any given magnification)

Or should I forget about all that BS and buy myself some more extension tubes? (actually I`ve tried about 60mm of tubes on a manual (screwmount!) body and a 50mm lens. It felt terribly awkward to mount and dismount them to vary magnification And the results were shockingly awful.

If the 50mm lens you used was regular "normal lens" and not a "macro" lens this is to be expected. (But you can get results something like this: http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... .php?t=421) A macro lens will fare much better with extension, and if you don't mind the very small working distance you should probably do pretty well with additional tubes. (In reality, for best results, even the 50mm macro should be reversed at magnifications over 1:1, but they do quite nicely above that.)

You can get truly outstanding results with enlarging lenses on bellows or extension tubes. And used ones are really cheap these days. (You will typically want to reverse-mount them as well.) But you stated the big problem. Manual aperture control. Very frustrating when working with living subjects.

If you do get the 135mm lens, you might try reverse mounting the 50mm macro to the front. (52-52 coupling rings are cheap and easy to get). You will probably need to add an extension tube or two between the 135 lens and camera body in order to eliminate all vignetting, but you will be close to 3X (3:1) with that set-up, and have normal aperture and metering control.

What camera body are you using? (Is it a full frame 35mm?)

Charlie

ottl · Post by **ottl** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 5:23 am

Charles Krebs wrote:Ott,

Also I would prefer keeping focal lengths short cause I love DOF

There is no DOF advantage (in photomacrography) to using shorter focal length lenses! (I know.... doesn't sound right, but it is true!)

At the same magnification, a shorter focal length gives the same DOF as a longer lens. (But the shorter focal length will require much less extension to get to any given magnification)
....

Charlie

I actually ought to know that but when you don`t think of it you forget it. But what about using close-up diopters like the Canon 500D. Does it apply to that, too?

BTW thanks for your help. I`m beginning to see it clearer now. I found a couple of used enlarger lenses: a Kodak Ektar 90/4.5 for about $19 or a Schneider Componon-S 100/5.6 for $129. I could go for the Schneider to have quality to start with. All I need now is a bellows... and a way to stick all those parts together

What do you think?

...and I could think about making the bellows auto-compatible later should I really need it... Just a bit of soldering to be done

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 1:40 pm

Ott,

But what about using close-up diopters like the Canon 500D. Does it apply to that, too?

Yes. There are no real DOF advantages/disadvantages when you supplementary close-up lenses like the 500D. The effective aperture does not become smaller as with extension tubes (or bellows). You actually need to stop down the "marked" aperture a bit more to get equivalent DOF to an "extended" set-up. The quality you can get with the Canon and Nikon supplementary close-up lenses is very good. But they really are most useful with lenses over 100mm focal length. If you are not excited about the quality of your long zoom, it might not give you the results you want. If you had a high quality zoom in the 80-200 or 100-300 range this is a nice option. But the magnifications obtained really aren't that high (unless you start using 50mm or 100mm lenses ... reverse mounted to the front... as supplementary close-up lenses)

I`m not afraid of short working distances. you know I used to use that zoom at 28mm with the tube a lot. A 28mm lens is pretty close to the subject at 0.55x

If this is the case, you might really want to consider more extension tubes. The 50mm Canon macro you have is a really excellent lens. Probably the biggest "downside" to extending a 50mm macro it that your working distance can get quite short. But a set of tubes, combined with the one you have, and the considerable close focusing already built into the macro lens, should enable you to get close to 2X with really good quality.

I found a couple of used enlarger lenses: a Kodak Ektar 90/4.5 for about $19 or a Schneider Componon-S 100/5.6 for $129. I could go for the Schneider to have quality to start with. All I need now is a bellows... and a way to stick all those parts together What do you think?

A couple of things come to mind. Realize that on most bellows the magnification you would get with a 90 or 100mm enlarging lens would not be that high. Probably just a bit over 1X or so. (A 100mm "short mount" lens needs 200mm of extension to get to 1X) You would have a large working distance, but for this magnification I think you might prefer you 50mm with some tubes. (Bellows are a pain to carry around in the field, and you would not have an auto aperture) Where bellows really excel is when used with something like a reversed 50 or 28mm to get magnifications from 3X and up. Usually an indoor, tripod mounted situation.

So I guess my suggestion (if about 2x will suffice most of the time) is to go with tubes. It sounds like you intend to travel with a 28mm, 50mm, and a 135mm. The tubes could be used with all of these (quite nice with a 135mm) and everything stays coupled to all the camera functions. Then if you feel an occasional need to go higher than 2X you could simply reverse mount the 28mm onto the tubes.

ottl · Post by **ottl** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 3:04 pm

I didn`t realize that I need that much extension with a 100mm enlarger lens. Aguess I should read up on some basic optics stuff

So maybe the tubes still... Aguess Kenko is the third party manufacturer to go with? They offer a set of 12mm + 20mm + 36mm for a fairly good price. The thing I don`t like about tubes is that it is cumbersome to change ratios but then again aguess I can live with that.

What about a TC? will it be very degrading to quality if I use it on a 50mm macro? I know that Canon offers a "Life size converter" for the 50/2.5 which is essentially about a 1.4x TC plus a bit of extension. But here in Estonia it costs almost the same as the lens itself

What about stacking things like this: the 50mm macro, then some extension and then a third party TC to boost the ratio a bit?

thanks anyway, you`ve helped me a lot already

ottl · Post by **ottl** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 9:45 am

A progress report of my macro setup...

I went through some old junk yesterday

and found myself an ancient enlarger lens (Industar 50U-1 - a Russian-made 50/3.5). The lens was really dirty both out-and inside and I had to resort to open-heart surgery.

I took the lens apart, down to individual elements, cleaned every one of them both sides. Then I took out the diaphragm and gently greased it

And a further plus - I think I succeeded in putting everything back together just as it was

Then I found a set of M39 extension tubes (a total of 55mm of extension) that fit on the enlarger lens. Now all I need to do is to secure this contraption on my EOS body. I`m planning to do this by sticking an EOS body cap to an M39 lens mount that I stripped from a wrecked rangefinder camera. I will of course make a hole in the body cap

Anyway it takes some work before I can show any samples but I sure am going to try this out cause it`s gonna cost me just a body cap

Well probably the image quality is going to be poor and the handling even worse...

Charles Chien · Post by **Charles Chien** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:40 am

ottl wrote:... Then I found a set of M39 extension tubes (a total of 55mm of extension) that fit on the enlarger lens. Now all I need to do is to secure this contraption on my EOS body. I`m planning to do this by sticking an EOS body cap to an M39 lens mount that I stripped from a wrecked rangefinder camera. I will of course make a hole in the body cap

If you take a look at a T-mount adapter, you would notice that it has three screws on the side - 120 degree away from one another. If you loosen them, then the T-mount ring itself can be released. See if that ring clears your M39 lens. If it does, what you can do is take a piece of plastic sheet with size of that ring, then clear in the middle 39mm for the lens, and attach that plastic sheet to the lens. Then, put the sheet with the lens inside of the T-mount adapter followed by the T-mount ring, then screw the three screws back. Now you have a very secured lens without any glue...

Hope this helps.

ottl · Post by **ottl** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:48 am

thanks Charles. I actually managed to fix everything myself. No glue needed and it seems pretty stable.

I hope to carry out a test shoot this weekend