Can anybody comment on the use of macro lenses on the crown or speed graphics? Is it practical to make greater than 1:1 and up to 1:10 images on the 4X5?

Read the thread in SPEED GRAFFIC HELP titled MACRO Questions by iangrant.

Quote:

On 2002-01-20 20:01, archer wrote: Can anybody comment on the use of macro lenses on the crown or speed graphics? Is it practical to make greater than 1:1 and up to 1:10 images on the 4X5?

I'm playing with that right now. I have a bunch of Tominon lenses for the Polaroid MP-4 and a shutter they'll screw into. The shutter is on a Graphic board. I also have a couple of Zeiss and Reichert macro lenses and have to have adapters made so I can screw them into a shutter. I already have adapters to use all of these lenses on a Nikon.

My first impressions are that the 17/4 and 35/4.5 Tominons are fine lenses. At 20 x and wide open, the 45/4.5 Zeiss Mikrotar is better than the 50/3.5 Reichert Neupolar is better than the 50/4.5 Tominon. Same hold at 8x. At 4x and wide open the 100/6.3 Neupolar is better than the 100/6.3 Zeiss, which is supposed to be (I have doubts) a Luminar. I don't have a 105 Tominon for comparison. At 1:1 the 100 Neupolar is better than a 4"/5.6 Enlarging Pro Raptar I got for shooting at 1:1, but f/11 - f/16 (have to shoot film to test) may be another story.

The limiting factors for photomacrography with Graphics are a combination of extension and focal length. The magic formula for extension (from film plane to lens' rear nodal point) needed to get desired magnification is:

extension = (1 + magnification) * focal length.

You can see that with a normal lens, the most you can get is 1:1. A Graphic's maximum extension is twice the normal lens' focal length. So if you want to get higher magnification you have to use a lens that is shorter than normal.

There is a section on high-magnification photography in the 1st edition of Graphic Graflex Photography, with a couple of spectacular shots taken with a Graphic and a B&L Micro Tessar.

So the short answer is, get some lenses and try it. Tominons and MP-4 shutters go for not very much on eBay, other large format macro lenses go for lots more. Polaroid sold a number of versions of the Copal #1 Press shutter. I like the MP-4 version most because it has an "open shutter" lever, the others just have a "T" setting.

Hope this helps,

Dan