El-Cheapo Lenses

Brandon...I assume your extension tubes are EOS mount, correct? Then if you want to try the tubes first, you will just need an EOS-M39 adapter like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M39-lens-Ca...em2c61f011dc

...Ray

SuperDave...Are you sure you need finer adjustment? Santoku is based on the MZ7 stand which is standard from B&L up to fairly high mag (at least 30x). Are you looking to do a lot of very small step sizes for focus stacking? Then you have basically 4 options:

If you want to have fine adjustment with just the camera/bellows function:

1) Get an automated focus rail like a StackShot to give you the fixed-step shots needed for stacking
2) Change over to a fine-focus bellows

If you want to have fine focus for MZ7 as well as camera/bellows functions:
3) Change over to a high power microscope stand that has fine-focus ability. Will need a lot of adapting to make work.
4) Add a lever to the focus-adjust handle on Santoku. You may want to bolt the stand down for easier adjustment

I'd suggest starting with #4...Ray

RPMS, yes my tubes are Canon EOS mounts. They are these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._i00_details

I purchased one of the adapters, and now I just have to wait for about a week for all of it to arrive at my house. :) Thanks for your help, and I'll keep you posted on progress toward understanding this VERY interesting topic. I did read the "tube vs. bellows" thread as well, very useful but I need the weekend to work through the optics lesson.

Cheers, and thanks!
-Brandon

SuperDave...Good, I'm glad that solution makes sense since it is the simplest. I will include something like that on any future Santoku's I build. I've also been thinking of building a "Santoku-2" where instead of the MZ7 I provide a Stereo pod for viewing varieties and such. Won't be useful for taking pictures with, but will make the stand serve yet another purpose. What do you think? It would have a ring mount for the Stereo pod, and then the bellows or camera would mount "inside" the ring...Ray

Brandon...Now that you have chosen a lens focal length you can do a quick set of calculations for extension lengths you will need...

Let's say you want to make the coin 15mm on your sensor...

Then you need 15/19 or 0.79 magnification for a Cent and 15/38 or 0.39 magnification for a Dollar.

With 75mm lens, this will require total extensions of 75(1+0.79)=134mm for the Cent, and 75(1+0.39)=104mm for the Dollar. The register on Canon EOS is 44mm, so you will need ~90mm additional extension for the Cent, and ~60mm additional extension for the Dollar.

So your adapters and tube extensions need to have a total length of between 60mm and 90mm (approximately, I'd go a bit shorter and longer to be safe...) to be able to pretty much fill the sensor with a Dollar and Cent respectively.

I checked the extensions you purchased and they max out at (28 + 14 + 7) = 49mm so you will need to buy a second set of extensions to get enough magnification even to fill the sensor with a Dollar.

There is another option you might consider to give you some flexibility without needing bellows...a focusing helicoid. They are tough to find, but it's easy to pick up a Vivitar 2x Macro Teleconverter and remove the optics to create a 44mm-62mm helicoid. Then with a small extension you can image dollars, and a large extension image Cents while still having some fine-tune adjustability in magnification. You will need two more adapters (FD lens to EOS body and M39 lens to FD body) to mount the teleconverter to your extension tubes, and the lens to the teleconverter.

...Ray

PS...here's a link to a Vivitar 2x Macro Teleconverter in Canon mount on ebay...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VIVITAR-2X-...em1e6921c48f

The graininess is there on the coin and the lens is picking it up, but I'm also doing a little final sharpening of "1" after downsizing and this seems to be accentuating the grain. I think it's the same thing you are seeing with the 75ARD1 where any sharpening at all is too much. I'm amazed this cheap little lens is so good! I have another one on the way in 80mm so will check it out and publish results. Odd thing is these E36C lenses have a fixed aperture. It's open enough that it might benefit from a 2-image stack, but the images I've taken with it are singles. My Nikon 3X is also a fixed aperture, and I am getting used to not having an adjustable aperture to worry about. I usually set it and forget it anyway so it's not a big change but it's more like working with microscope objectives than camera lenses.

FYI, I have a Tominon E36 86mm that has the aperture as well as this one without. I'm going to call the one with aperture "T86" and the one without "T86C" since its nomenclature is E36C. Here is a nice 58D I just found in a roll and imaged with the T86C:

Ray you are phenomenal, seriously. Thanks for the calculation, that's very helpful. I went ahead and purchased a bellows that extends to 150mm max. The focusing by raising my copy stand telescope was too much of a hassle...I'd much rather have the fine tuning of the control of the bellows. :) I hope they all arrive early this coming week, and I'll be able to post some initial shots.

THANKS again for all of your help and information. Truly a wealth of knowledge!

Ray and Dave,

I want to thank both of you for your help. I received my bellows today, and one of my lenses as well. The lens is a 75mm Vivitar, f-3.5 enlarger lens. I mounted it on my bellows with some adapters, and was able to take my first shots just about an hour ago. I took a series of 5 shots with the aperture closed down to 8.0. AS an experiment, I created a 5-stack image and I also show the middle of the 5 images for comparison. I'm VERY happy with the set-up, and the quality is absolutely stunning. The lens cost me $17.59 with free shipping! Amazing, truly! Thanks again guys, this is going to be a new amazing part of my enjoyment of the hobby!

-Brandon

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The 5-stacked image:


The single example image:


And the representative full-shot (not rescaled) zoomed in pieces.

5-Stacked photo:


Single shot example: