Best I Can Get On A $400 Budget? Help

That's about the best deal you'll ever see for this lens. I don't need it, but I'd snag it instantly had I the money to spare.

I wonder who could have purchased that lens...?

Hopefully.

Glad you picked that lens up. Most of the lenses I link to in the El-Cheapo thread, or in threads like this, don't get purchased by forum members. So far this thread is 2 for 2! I just hope the lenses are in as good condition as the sellers describe. Crossing my fingers.

What other options are you considering? The only thing that will get you better quality than the 75EL is going to a dedicated duplicating lens like the 75ARD1, but for web publishing you won't be able to tell the difference. If you're going for higher magnification for variety shots, then microscope objectives will be superior. However, there is a "dead zone" around 2:1 that seems to be hard to fill. Here's a list of what I would recommend versus magnification:

- Full slab shots or large medals below 1:4...Better dedicated macro lenses such as Canon 100mm, Nikon 105mm Micro, Tamron 150mm or 180mm, etc or very long bellows lenses such as Nikon 150EL, 135EL, or even 120AMED or 120ARD

- Quarter to Dollar shots at 1:1.5 to 1:2.5...Better dedicated macros, or long bellows lenses such as Nikon 135B, 105B, 105EL or 80EL, Rodenstock 105RR/RS or 80RR/RS, Tominon 105TT, or medium bellows lenses such as 75EL, 75TT, 75ARD1 stopped down to f8

- Dime to Nickel shots at 1:1.2 to 1:1.5...medium bellows lenses such as 75EL, 75TT or 75ARD1, or short bellows lenses such as 63EL, 67RS, 60E36, etc. Intrepid folks may consider the 105PN, 74SP, or 105AEL

- Detail shots from 2:1 to 1:1...short bellows lenses such as 35RE, 35TT, 35MP, or any of the short to medium bellows lenses above. The intrepid can try the lenses above, and add to the list the 95PN, 65MN, etc. Note the best lens available for 2:1 is the 35MP

- Detail shots at 3:1 and above...microscope objectives, or very short macro lenses such as 17TT, 20MP, or similar.

One thing that's been discussed on other forums is the use of teleconverters to increase magnification using the same lens used for lower mag. This method has tradeoffs of course but it offers an alternative to doing an objective swap. You can go from 1:1 to 2:1 instantly without even changing focus. In essence this is an "optical zoom" function so has a higher end quality than a crop method. It still isn't as good as using an optimized objective, but a side benefit is you don't need to do Z-stacking because DOF is not reduced much...

Picked this up for my new rig...Konica Copy Stand. Hope it works

Any results from the setups?

This is a great thread.. thanks to SsuperDdave for pointing me in the right direction.... ill be rereading this thread a whole bunch to get a list of parts together....

I want to thank everyone that has contributed to this thread it is awesome to see so many people come together for a fellow and help them make smart decisions and not throw hard earned money away... thanks again.... PEACE...