Macro Close Up Options

[boojum]

Winter is upon us with shorter days and lower temps, those of us above the equator.  So camera jaunts are more limited for me.  And I am thinking of dabbling in macro photography without spending some big bucks.  I have bought the FotodioX 20mm and 48mm extenstion tubes to try out with my XCD 55v.  But this means opening the camera and exposing the sensor to dust every time I want to use them.  The other option I have seen is close up filters.  B&W makes them in +3 and +5 diopter and no lens removal required.

Can anyone share their experience with extension tubes and/or close up filters?

[pdprinter]

Shorter days for me too but it does not look like winter yet.
I tried extension tubes and found that they work only with the 45f4.0P well as this lens has not internal focusing but moves the entire lens for focus. I am using close up lenses and as you mentioned the advantage of not to have to take the lens off and on is very appreciated when on does not want to spent a lot of time cleaning dust in post.
I am using close up lenses but how good the image quality is depends on the correction of that lens. B&W just make single lens uncorrected ones and I would stay away from them but look for multi element achromatic corrected lenses. I used the often recommended Raynox DCR150 but IQ was not good at all except in the very center but it has the advantage is that it is a snap-on design, so very easy to take on or off. The best I found was the NISI 77mm. It is heavier and screw-on (with supplied adapters) but the image quality is very good over the entire field. Even with the 120mm Macro it works well to get past 0.5x magnification.

[JCM-Photos]

You can also try to use the close-up lens in reverse position.

With some lenses, or distances, it can work better.

[Hareb]

My extension tubes from Fotodiox work with all XCDs because they transmit the electronic data. There may be problems with some lenses when using both extension tubes at the same time.


A close-up lens with 3 diopters can be used with the focus at infinity on the lens at around 30 cm. That's not much less than the 45 cm that the 2.5/55 mm achieves without accessories. It's probably better if you take photos without any accessories and cut out what's too much.

A close-up lens with 5 diopters reaches about 20 cm. This gives significantly more image scale, but results in a lot of performance loss in terms of image quality.

The longer the lens focal length and the stronger the close-up lens, the greater the magnification. With longer focal lengths, the benefit of a close-up lens becomes much greater. So at 55 mm it will only be of little use. However, you should not choose more than 3 diopters.

With the 20 mm extension tube, the 55 mm achieves an image scale of approximately 1:2. That's very good. I don't know how well the lens is corrected for close-up. In any case, it doesn't have any floating elements, which would help. But the quality will be much better than with a close-up lens.

With the 48mm tube, almost 1:1 is possible at very little distance. The field of focus at f 2.5 will then be extremely small, probably less than 1 mm. At f 8 it is still very little.

It's probably better to spend the money on sensor cleaning supplies instead of close-up lenses. With a Hasselblad you might not want to live with poor image quality. I would prefer some dust on the sensor over poor quality.

[Bob Foster]

Hello boojum,

I'm going to offer three potential solutions for you to get started in macro  photography. I'll do this over the course of four posts.

This, the first post will deal with why I'm skeptical that either a supplemental lens or extension tubes will offer the IQ that you've come to expect from your Hasselblad.

It appears that B+W has discontinued their line of supplemental lenses. Adorama still has stock on +3 and +4 diopter B+W lenses in 72mm to fit your XCD 55V. However, to the best of my knowledge, all of these "close up" lenses are single element designs. I have yet to see a wholly satisfactory single element supplemental lens. The primary troubles I've experienced are field flatness and fringing. The B+W lenses (along with the perhaps still current Heliopan lenses) were the best of this kind of product available recently. I do not see a +5 diopter supplemental lens for sale at any of my usual sources. Yes, in theory you can stack single element diopter lenses. However, unless your clients are fond of really wild goings on in the area surrounding say the central 15-20mm area of the image you'll find yourself spending far too much time in post "taming" all but the centre. Zeiss Proxar supplemental lenses in Bay 50 & Bay 60 were once available from Hasselblad for the V series lenses.  I've never used the Proxars, they were discontinued long ago. My recollection of the opinion of those that did own Proxars is that they were not something that would be used when working with a customer who wanted top quality images. If indeed you do decide to use single element supplementary lenses and all of the retailers are sold out of the B+W products B&H has special ordered Heliopan products for me in the past. Note that Heliopan products are expensive compared to B+W. This isn't a criticism of Heliopan- if you've never used any of their products think of them as the makers of Really Really Really Right Lens Acceessories.

Leica does make some first class supplemental lenses but like the Hasselblad X 1.7 teleconverter for the XCD 135mm lens they are calculated for specific lenses- for instance, there is a specific ELPRO diopter for the 100mm Apo Macro Elmarit R lens.

The real shame is that Canon, Nikon, and if I recall correctly Minolta all used to make well corrected supplemental lenses. These had two coated elements each; both field flatness and fringing were much better controlled.

The good news is that NISI is offering a 77mm 2 element supplemental lens of nominally +5 diopters; this lens comes with two step up rings: 72mm -> 77mm and 67mm -> 77mm. It is billed as apochromatic. I have not seen test data that would verify that level of performance (indeed, as far as I know there is not a formal and universally accepted definition of exactly what constitutes apochromatic performance) but I suspect that it is a very good achromatic lens. A couple years ago the youtube blogger "Mathphotographer" did a review of the NISI "close up lens." Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ket5ip36ZYg

B&H has this lens at a nominal 20% off: $111.20. Link: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1604746-REG/nisi_nir_closeup_77ii_77mm_close_up_lens.html/overview

Extension tubes and or bellows. (Think of a camera equipped with a bellows as having a variable extension tube.) These products are at their best when symmetric, near symmetric, or some of the relatively simple lens designs are used. Many double Gauss lenses including some that predate digital photography work surprisingly well with extension tubes and or bellows setups- even on high megapixel cameras. BSI sensors have, to an extent, helped to solve some of the initial issues. Two of the very best macro lenses on the market today, the Rodenstock/Linos L float 105mm f5.6 and the Schneider Kreuznach Macro Varon 85mm f4.5 have user variable beta (marked β on the control ring) to assure the availability of peak performance everywhere within the designed magnification range. The preceding sentence points out the main weakness in using most contemporary lenses with extension tubes or with a bellows. Only a few current lenses unit focus- that is another way of saying that when the lens is focused all of the elements move together without changing the positional relationship between the various elements as the barrel containing all the glass moves back and forth along the axis of the lens. Since the advent of internal focusing and its' variants front focusing, rear focusing, and differential focusing lens design has become much more complex. In general, internal focusing allows for better lens performance: the spacing between the various elements of modern lenses must change to retain best image quality over the full focus range of the lens. This is a form of variable beta. It's not just the optical engineer's job that has become more of a challenge, the tasks of the mechanical and electronic engineers have also become much more complex.

One result of this is that a general purpose supplementary lens will often have a "sweet spot" (or occasionally more than one "sweet spot")  when used with internal focus lenses. In order to bring to market lenses at a reasonable price and reasonable size and weight compromises can become necessary. I suspect that this is part of why Hasselblad limited the XCD Macro 120 to 1:2 magnification. If it is necessary to use the HC 120 Macro II your lens setup including the adapter and lens foot is nearly twice as long and weighs nearly twice as much as the XCD 120 Macro! This may be part of why Leica and Voigtländer have produced some macro lenses that are limited to 1:2 like the XCD 120, not 1:1 magnification like the HC 120 Macro II but offer dedicated supplementary lenses calculated to produce optimal results with a specific lens design.

Posts 2 &3 will be up tomorrow. These will compare the XCD 120 Macro with a 1960's vintage lens that's available in good condition for $60 or so. Post 4 will cover various means of obtaining depth of field in macro photography, and a few thoughts on focus stacking software. I'll see if I can get that up Thursday.

Bob

[bmikiten]

While much simpler in execution, I've found that simply focusing carefully on the subject at the closest possible with the Hassy lenses then simply editing it to crop size in PS or other software is as efficient for less than 24" final image sizes. It's just a matter of the number of pixels available.

[pdprinter]

Hi Bob. Very good explanations. The only close up lens which I know for certain that was specifically designed for a lens by Leica was for the Apo-Elmarit Macro 100mm, which I owned both long time ago. It had a specific shape to allow the back element of this Elpro to protrude back to be close to the lens front element. Maybe the Elpro 180 is designed specifically corrected for the Apo-Elmar-S 180mm too. Their newest version Elpro 52 fits all M lenses.
About the NiSi 77. It claims to be apochromatic corrected but I am not sure if that is really true as it is only a 2 element design and generally to achieve apochromatic correction more lens elements are used but maybe it can be achieved with to elements with appropriate glass selection. Anyhow I like the results from this close-up lens.

P.S.:
Achromatic means perfectly corrected for chromatic aberrations at 2 wavelengths and apochromatic for 3 but that neglects what aberrations are between these wavelengths so a achromatic lens which diverge minimally between the optimal corrected wavelengths can have better performance than an apochromatic design like the Hasselblad 250 Superachromat.

[Bob Foster]

Hello pfprinter,

You are absolutely correct regarding achromatic and apochromatic lenses. My point was that there is not a universally accepted quantitative standard for allowable deviation from the plane of optimum focus that is allowed for wavelengths of light for which a lens is not designed to be "perfect." Indeed, I suspect that many of us have one or more lenses that were never advertised by their manufacturers as achromatic or apochromatic that cause few problems in even the most critical use.

Regarding the Zeiss/Hasselblad superachromats: Sidney Ray in his book Scientific Photography and Applied Imaging on page 39 shows a graph which represents correction of superachromats. Focus is optimal at 4 wavelengths between 400 and 775 nm. Deviation from thee plane of ideal focus is exceptionally minimal.

Bob

[Bob Foster]

Hello boojum,

I should have mentioned yesterday that use of the XCD 55V with a supplementary lens may, in some instances, cause problems to arise in lighting your subject due to the proximity of the camera and lens to the subject. At this point I'll simply note that the use of a longer focal length lens for macro work to produce magnification equal to that given by a shorter focal length lens requires the camera and lens to be placed further from the subject. This can greatly ease lighting issues and also allow for use of more lighting options.

Part 2

OK, I'm ready for all to laugh at an old man's antics. Both the picture in this post and the image in post 3 were taken hand held with an X2D. The subject was a page from a pdf version of an Hasselblad lens brochure displayed on the old tertiary monitor on my desktop that is overdue for recycling because it no longer maintains a semblance of colour stability. When the furnace or air conditioner cycles on or off the display colour of this monitor shifts with the air currents...

The camera was set at ISO 400, 1/125, f5.6 for both photos. The monitor refresh related banding could have been minimized by lowering the ISO and shutter speed settings but long ago I learned that because a macro lens is ordinarily used very close to the subject motion blur caused by camera movement is can be a problem. In the case of the immediately following image it appears that I moved a bit more than the image stabilization was capable of handling.

This image was taken with an XCD 120 f3.5 Macro. Magnification is about 1:2.15

Bob

[Bob Foster]

Hello boojum,

Part 3

If you're determined to use a 55mm lens rather than a longer focal length you might be willing to consider the type of lens I made the following image with. Coat of this lens in used, but good or better condition runs about $60 from at least one reputable retailer. I double checked this today. If you don't have a Nikon F lens to Hasselblad X adapter you'd need to acquire one.

This image was taken with a Micro Nikkor 55mm f3.5 I purchased new in 1966. I did mention that a few relatively simple old lenses do work reasonably well with modern BSI sensors. Other than minimizing the banding issue I mentioned in part 2 by using the moiré tool in Phocus (it usually works better for me than the equivalent tool in Capture One). I experimented with  the vignetting removal tool but did not use it in this image as posted. About 2/3 of a stop does improve the corners.

There is a significant difference in colour as rendered. This can be minimized by creation of an input profile in the software of your choice to be used with this lens (only).

Yes, if focus stacking by adjusting focus (not by moving the camera) you would have to use the focus ring manually with this lens. Mastery of older or alternate techniques that can produce high quality images is always a positive thing foe a photographer.

Magnification of this image is about 1:2

Bob

[Bob Foster]

Hello boojum,

Part 4

OK the XCD is clearly better than the Nikkor. In part this is due to the more sophisticated lens design, in part due to the single coated lenses of the Micro Nikkor greatly under performing modern
multicoating technology, and in part due to other factors; there is a subtlety present in the midtones of the Nittoh/Hasselbled lens that's entirely absent in the Micro Nikkor. True, there is more "pop" present in the image made with the Nikkor: though it's not my personal preference I plead guilty to harbouring (and employing) several lenses that used with appropriate lighting will
produce the bold sort of product photo that some clients want.

This lens works best from say 1:10 to 1:2 magnification. I did add the extension tube that allows it to extend its' range to 1:1 in trials on the X2D. Hard vignetting appeared and image quality declined.

If you're set on using the 55mm focal length and this lens appeals to you for its' combination of price and value let me know. There were a dozen versions of this lens produced over many years, some variants are substantially better than others, other changes were inconsequential.

*****

I believe that you would find a lens in the 90 to 200mm focal length range a better choice for general purpose macro photography. Macro lenses in 100, 105, 120, and 125mm focal length are probably the most commonly used because they allow much more room between the subject and the front element of your lens. I can't overemphasize the importance of the flexibility in lighting your subject that is gained by backing the camera away from the subject by as little as a few centimetres. If use of one of these longer lenses does appeal to you, given that they are more popular, it's likely that you can find something that would be a good value to you in the range of $100-150.

*****

The means of producing the individual images of a (macro) stack by use of different ways of focusing. There is a good web page covering this on Rik Littlefield's website. Link: https://zerenesystems.com/cms/stacker/docs/troubleshooting/ringversusrailThere is a lot of first class information on this page. Please read it in full.

I'll offer comments on why Rik has to say in the table about focusing methods.

***

Lens ring manual- Producing a series of images that can be stacked successfully with a lens having a ring with short focus (say 90 to 135°) throw is indeed a challange. On the other hand some of the classic manual focus lenses had very long focus throws; the Cosina Voigtländer Macro Apo Lanthar's ring turned ~630°, the Leica Apo Macro Elmarit R's ring turned ~710°; these were a joy to use even at maximum magnification.

***

Lens focus controlled by AF motor- The two varies comments refer to the capabilities of the hardware and software involved.

***

Focusing rails (geared type)-

Landscape (5 frames)- Given that you don't change the focus ring when using a focus rail the length of the rail required (even allowing for hyperfocal distance) would be preposterous.

Bouquet of flowers (10 Frames)- Assuming that you do have a focusing rail with enough travel to allow the successful production of the required images the shape of at least some features of the subject will vary enough from frame to frame that severe artifacts will result in the stacked image.

Single rose (20 Frames)- The same problems as with the bouquet are likely to arise with most subjects but there is an exception if all significant elements of a subject are parallel to the sensor plane and those elements not parallel to the sensor plane do not extend beyond the depth of focus for a single frame.

Raisin (40 Frames)- Results of the camera rendering the subject are likely to cause fewer problems. The resultant stack will not in most cases require an inordinate time in post to remove the almost inevitable artifacts.

Fruit Fly (200 Frames)- The gearing on commercially available rails of this type is too coarse to produce the needed frame to frame adjustment.

Eye of Fruit Fly (Many Frames)- The gearing on commercially available rails of this type is far, far too coarse to produce the needed frame to frame adjustment.

***

Focusing rails (manually driven screw)-

Landscape (5 frames)- Given that you don't change the focus ring when using a focus rail the length of the rail required (even allowing for hyperfocal distance) would be preposterous.

Bouquet of flowers (10 Frames)- Assuming that you do have a focusing rail with enough travel to allow the successful production of the required images the shape of at least some features of the subject will vary enough from frame to frame that severe artifacts will result in the stacked image.

Single rose (20 Frames)- The same problems as with the bouquet are likely to arise with most subjects but there is an exception if all significant elements of a subject are parallel to the sensor plane and those elements not parallel to the sensor plane do not extend beyond the depth of focus for a single frame.

Raisin (40 Frames)- Results of the camera rendering the subject are likely to cause fewer problems. The resultant stack will not in most cases require an inordinate time in post to remove the almost inevitable artifacts.

Fruit Fly (200 Frames)- It's a bit of a pain in the patoot to adjust the screw manually in very small and adequately consistent increments. A single mistake can ruin a stack.

Eye of Fruit Fly (Many Frames)- Difficult indeed! Before the advent of motor driven rails I considered construction of a dedicated rail for this task based around the use of a differential screw. I could not justify the cost.

***

Focusing rails (motor driven screw)-

Landscape (5 frames)- Given that you don't change the focus ring when using a focus rail the length of the rail required (even allowing for hyperfocal distance) would be preposterous.

Bouquet of flowers (10 Frames)- Assuming that you do have a focusing rail with enough travel to allow the successful production of the required images the shape of at least some features of the subject will vary enough from frame to frame that severe artifacts will result in the stacked image.

Single rose (20 Frames)- The same problems as with the bouquet are likely to arise with most subjects but there is an exception if all significant elements of a subject are parallel to the sensor plane and those elements not parallel to the sensor plane do not extend beyond the depth of focus for a single frame.

Raisin (40 Frames)- Results of the camera rendering the subject are likely to cause fewer problems. The resultant stack will not in most cases require an inordinate time in post to remove the almost inevitable artifacts.

Fruit Fly (200 Frames)- Excellent.

Eye of Fruit Fly (Many Frames)- Excellent.

*****

Stacking Software-

If you have Photoshop or Affinity do try these. With high quality input images of a subject that is simple to render the output of these programs is often quite usable. Artifact removal and general retouching will likely take longer than if a dedicated stacking program had been used to produce the stack but this may well not be prohibitive.

As the visual complexity of a subject increases in 3 dimensions but is rendered in a final 2 dimensional image through multiple inputs of 2 dimensional "slices" I've found that the usefulness of the output of both Photoshop and Affinity is highly variable and also difficult to predict. Artifact removal and retouching times can and will vary from reasonable to "there is no way I'm going to attempt to deal with this mess."

That brings me to brief notes on two dedicated stacking programs, Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker.

First I'll observe that when using default settings and good quality input material the results produced by Helicon and Zerene are often strikingly alike.

Helicon produces the result of a stack at least twice as fast as Zerene, often in a third of the time that Zerene takes to produce an equivalent result on my workstation. The editor in Helicon is good. Compared to Zerene user control of how the algorithms process your digital date is very much limited. Certain highly useful techniques such as slabbing* that
are available within Zerene can be big time savers, this is not incorporated within Helicon; the workaround involves the user in manipulating the files on the computer and extra interactions with Helicon.

Zerene offers its' users far more control over how it goes about processing images; if you purchase the prosumer or pro version a beta version that contains a further number of useful features is also available to you at no cost. In my opinion of the editor in Zerene is even better than the good editor in Helicon. There are a number of other features within Zerene that will help to minimize the time you spend in Photoshop or Affinity in cleaning up your final image. It does take more time and experimentation to thoroughly learn how best to use the advantages Zerene offers compared to Helicon.

To sum up-

As you might have guessed by now if there is such a thing as an average stack the total time invested in using either the Helicon Focus program for stacking and some editing followed by finishing up with Photoshop or Affinity comes out much the same as Using Zerene Stacker for making the stacked image and doing most of the editing with only a few minutes spent in Photoshop or Affinity for touch up. Customer service with this product is exceptionally good.

If my output consisted primarily of images for web use with prints no larger than 11 X 14 I'd be tempted to use Helicon.This software is easy to use and is capable of producing a high quality image.

I like large prints. It's my opinion that that Zerene, when used by someone determined to make the best image possible, is capable of producing a result that often marginally but sometimes is substantially better than Helicon when a big print is made.


* Slabbing.

Let's say you've taken a series of two or three hundred images of a complex scene. Perhaps something small in the grass or worse, a "hairy" bumblebee. As the software creates the stack it's almost inevitable that it will create some crossing representations of entities that do not correspond to what was really there and are easily seen as "oopsies." This type of artifact is a fact of life in dealing with all stacking software. Slabbing involves creation of slabs or groups of images made as what might be thought of as sub-stacks prior to the creation final stack for instance images 1 trough 12, 9 through 21, 18 through 30 and so on. The result of using this technique is almost always a greatly number of artifacts to be retouched.

Bob

[boojum]

Folks, thank you!  Bob Foster, I'd call your presentations a precis but honestly it is more a short dissertation.  I cannot remember the Latin but the school motto rendered in English was to the effect, "Having been warned/chastened/punished/advised (the Latin is flexible here) we will strive to do better."  OK, no XCD 55V!  That is off the table.  Bad me.  ;o)  I understand what you say about distance and lighting.  Even if it is navel lint or nose hair the light is key as it is in all we do with cameras.  So I will search for a good short tele macro.  And the latest firmware allows auto focus bracketing so that is sweet.

I live in the Pacific Northwest. We have two seasons: pretty rainy and lots of rain.  100" a year here in Astoria.  So anything I do will be done indoors for the winter.  I have the LED fill lights and can get some fabric for background.  Being a little more than half-mad I am thinking i could try some Leica mount glass with an adapter and extenders.  It would be tripod so that rolling shutter would be OK,  The LED lights might not be unless I shoot at < 1/60.  They are battery powered so I'll see.  It may not be a problem. 

I want to thank again all who so generously contributed to this thread.  You can be sure that I will sit, glass of tea in hand, and read, re-read and re-read the thread.  All I need now is talent.  ROTFLMAOAPMP

[boojum]

Follow up.  I have followed the general wisdom here and the specific advice of Bob and have just bought a used XCD 120 3.5 macro.  It will be here in a few days.  Following the link to mathphotgrapher and seeing his results with the NiSi close up filter I ordered it and that will be here in a few days, too.  Also it seems that Zerene is the recommended stacking software so I will follow that.  The X2D now does focus bracketing/stacking so no need for a focusing rail.

You have shared great advice and encouragement.  This reminds me of an old stat and math buddy who described his work as to define the problem, reduce it to a problem already solved, and then done.  The HB 120 3.5 macro seems a very good lens and very good for macro.  The NiSi is demonstrated by our Swiss friend as a real and functional way to get larger images and Zerene the better stacking software.

Thank you all for your help.

[pdprinter]

I rented a xcd 120mm to test and tried it with the NiSi 77 which worked great up to 1:1. I am still not convinced if I want to shlep around such heavy lens but perfectly fine indoors provides enough light. In the meantime I am experimenting with the 90/2.5 V and with that closeup lens I get good result up to 0.5x.

[tenmangu81]

@Bob:
In the end, what looks better to you : a lens ring or a macro lens (e.g. NiSi) ? Which solution works better with an XCD lens, such as the 55V (looks not so good ?) or the XCD90 ?
Thanks

P.S. For the light, I have bought Negative Supply light source and film carrier. Works great.