Help, Please! New To Photography

Kelly, I will be more than happy to help get you started over this rather large (as you've obviously discerned) lump in the road. However, I'm about to leave for possibly the entire weekend. If other haven't chimed in (and even if they do) by the time I'm back - probably Sunday - I'll address your needs at length.

In the meantime, try to find out what threads/connectors are on the teleconverters you already own. They will figure prominently in the answer we come up with.

Kelly,

Since you're interested in varieties, you probably want to set up your system for at least 1:1 magnification, if not higher. You have quite a selection of lenses available, and as the Cap'n says none are really going to work well as macro lenses on their own. I see what SD is alluding to with the teleconverter approach, and I'll leave that path to him to describe. I have a potential alternative that might work for you...

The technique I think will work best for you is called "lens stacking". Basically, you mount one lens normally to the camera, and then mount the other one _backwards_ to the first one. They connect together with a "reversing adapter" that screws into both of their filter threads. For now, until you can identify a pair of lenses that work well for you, you can just tape the lenses together with masking or other tape.

Now, to pick the lenses you can use for this. The lens that mounts to the camera is called the "tube lens", while the one that mounts reversed on front of tube lens is called the "objective lens". For reasons I'll explain in a bit, the tube lens is usually a telephoto, while the objective is a wide angle. The tube lens is _always_ focused at infinity, and set to its widest aperture setting. Always. The tube lens can be a zoom, as long as it has a fairly "stiff" zoom function. The objective is usually a fixed focal length lens with wide aperture. So from the list you gave us, here is what you might try:

Tube Lenses
24-70
62
80-200

Objectives
24
50

Which to choose, and why? It all comes down to magnification. The simple formula is:

M = FL(tube)/FL(objective)

So with the 50 objective and 62 tube, the magnification will be 62/50=1.24. The working distance from lens to coin will be approximately the focal length of the objective lens. So for 50 lens you will be about 2 inches from the coin.

If you use the 24 objective with 62 tube, magnification will be 2.58, and you will only be able to get about 1 inch from the coin. This is pretty high magnification, and will be difficult to control depth of field for.

Using a zoom as tube lens will give you variable magnification. The problem with zooms is they often don't play well with heavy objective lenses attached. You can see if either zoom is suitable by grabbing the filter ring and pulling on it. It will likely extend to its max length, and that will be where it stays using it as a tube lens. If the 24-70 settles on 70 when you pull it out, that might make a good tube lens. The magnification will be just a bit higher than with the 62. The 80-200 will probably fall to the 200 side, which will give you very high magnification (M=4 with the 50 objective) which may be hard to work with.

So, I'd recommend mounting the 62 on the camera, and kludging the 50 onto the 62 in reverse. Then try some shots with aperture at each setting and see what gives the best picture. My second choice would be the 24-70 as tube lens with 50 objective.

Ray

how close are you trying to get. I took this pic of a Canada 1957 hanging 7 cent using just a standard 18-55mm lens

Timnic44 I am close enough to get only 2 full numbers and part of a third without cropping on silver dollars. I just found one of my 1880s is a 8/7 ! How fun is that? I'm currently looking at mint marks and dates.
Ray, how would I get a larger field with this level of magnification? Or is this the trade-off? I'll try playing more to see if I can keep it in focus and have a larger area. I am open to any suggestions and am grateful for all the help.