Finally, macro extension rings with electronic contacts are available at a low price. They are marketed as Meike, Skyblue, Neewer, and probably more names, and one pack includes two rings: One 10mm thick, and one 16mm thick. My rings look like this:
Showing posts with label macro rings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macro rings. Show all posts
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
Meike/Neewer macro rings: Highly recommended
I have previously tested a number of low cost solutions to macro photography. Mostly, they are quite hard to use, for example because they don't support changing the aperture or focusing. I think I had the most impressive results with a reverser ring, however, the working distance becomes very short, and there is no aperture control or focus possibility.
Finally, macro extension rings with electronic contacts are available at a low price. They are marketed as Meike, Skyblue, Neewer, and probably more names, and one pack includes two rings: One 10mm thick, and one 16mm thick. My rings look like this:
Finally, macro extension rings with electronic contacts are available at a low price. They are marketed as Meike, Skyblue, Neewer, and probably more names, and one pack includes two rings: One 10mm thick, and one 16mm thick. My rings look like this:
Friday, 25 November 2011
Macro spacer rings for Four Thirds
There are a lot of accessories you can buy for your camera. Since I have a Four Thirds standard lens, the Olympus Zuiko Digital 50mm f/2 1:2 macro lens, I decided to buy some Four Thirds macro rings to extend the macro range of the lens even further. To use the lens on a Micro Four Thirds camera in the first place, and adapter is needed. The Panasonic DMW-MA1 or Olympus MMF1/MMF2 adapters should do. The macro spacer rings then go between the adapter and the Four Thirds lens.
The rings
These rings cost US$10, including shipment from China, which is very cheap. Upon arrival, I noticed that the quality did appear rather poor, in line with the price. The box is rather anonymous, with a "OM4/3" text and something in Chinese:
In the picture below, they are all screwed together, to give the longest possible extension:
And below, I have unscrewed them into individual components:
From left to right: The ring that goes into the adapter, or into a Four Thirds standard camera, and the first extension ring (1, 7mm), the second extension ring (2, 14mm), the third extension ring (3, 27mm), and finally the ring on which the lens is mounted.
By using these rings in different permutations, extensions of 17mm (just the front and rear ring), 24mm, 31mm, 38mm, 44mm, 58mm and 65mm (all the rings) are possible. The 24mm extension, using only the first extension ring marked with a 1, corresponds pretty much to the Olympus EX-25 Four Thirds extension ring at 25mm.
Operation
When using these rings, please note that they have are no electrical contacts at all. This means that the lens is "dead" when mounting it onto the macro extension rings, and you cannot operate the focus or the aperture.
I'm guessing that it is best to first extend the focus of the lens all the way, and then mount it on the extension rings. To do this, you must do a small trick, namely to first manually focus the lens to the minimum focus distance while it is mounted to the camera, and then unmount it without turning off the camera first. That way, you can mount the lens on the extension rings while the focus is already at the closest. Most likely, you'll want to use a smaller aperture than f/2, and again you must do the same trick: Change the aperture and unmount the lens without turning off the camera first. Of course, this process is rather awkward if you are going to experiment with different apertures.
The results
So how do these extension rings affect the close focusing possibility of the ZD50 1:2 macro lens?
First, let's see how close it can focus without any extra extension. Here the lens is mounted to the 4/3 to M4/3 adapter, on the Panasonic GH2 camera:
And the resulting image, at f/8, ISO 160:
24mm extension, 1:1 macro
Using the 24mm extension, corresponding roughly to using the Olympus EX-25 macro extension, the setup looks like this, note that the figure is closer to the front lens element:
With this resulting image, also at f/8 and ISO 160. This corresponds to around 1:1 magnification:
65mm extension, 2:1 macro
Finally, adding all the macro rings for a total of 65mm extension yields this setup:
Note that the figure is now very close to the front lens element. It is not easy to light the figure properly in this position, since the lens casts shadow over the subject. The resulting photo looks like this, at around 2:1 magnification, also written as 2x:
Conclusion
These macro extension rings were cheap, and not very good quality. Further, since they have no electronic contacts, they are very awkward to use. You must stop down the aperture before mounting the lens on the extension rings, which makes focusing harder. Normally, you focus at maximum aperture, and then stop down for taking the picture, which is handled automatically by the camera. But with no communication between the camera and lens, this is no longer possible.
The Olympus EX-25 extension rings allow for changing the aperture, and is probably much easier to use. However, it is also much more expensive.
At full extension, the macro rings allow for roughly 2:1 macro magnification, meaning that you can photograph an object with a diameter of half the diameter of the imaging sensor.
If you want to increase the magnification of a Four Thirds lens, but don't want to shell out the cash for the EX-25 extension ring, I would recommend that you simply crop the center of your images, rather than buy these cheap rings. The rings are not very fun to use, due to the lack of electronic contacts, and the poor quality. Keep in mind that since these rings are for the Four Thirds format, they cannot be used for Micro Four Thirds lenses. They can only be used for Four Thirds lenses.
The rings
These rings cost US$10, including shipment from China, which is very cheap. Upon arrival, I noticed that the quality did appear rather poor, in line with the price. The box is rather anonymous, with a "OM4/3" text and something in Chinese:
In the picture below, they are all screwed together, to give the longest possible extension:
And below, I have unscrewed them into individual components:
From left to right: The ring that goes into the adapter, or into a Four Thirds standard camera, and the first extension ring (1, 7mm), the second extension ring (2, 14mm), the third extension ring (3, 27mm), and finally the ring on which the lens is mounted.
By using these rings in different permutations, extensions of 17mm (just the front and rear ring), 24mm, 31mm, 38mm, 44mm, 58mm and 65mm (all the rings) are possible. The 24mm extension, using only the first extension ring marked with a 1, corresponds pretty much to the Olympus EX-25 Four Thirds extension ring at 25mm.
Operation
When using these rings, please note that they have are no electrical contacts at all. This means that the lens is "dead" when mounting it onto the macro extension rings, and you cannot operate the focus or the aperture.
I'm guessing that it is best to first extend the focus of the lens all the way, and then mount it on the extension rings. To do this, you must do a small trick, namely to first manually focus the lens to the minimum focus distance while it is mounted to the camera, and then unmount it without turning off the camera first. That way, you can mount the lens on the extension rings while the focus is already at the closest. Most likely, you'll want to use a smaller aperture than f/2, and again you must do the same trick: Change the aperture and unmount the lens without turning off the camera first. Of course, this process is rather awkward if you are going to experiment with different apertures.
The results
So how do these extension rings affect the close focusing possibility of the ZD50 1:2 macro lens?
First, let's see how close it can focus without any extra extension. Here the lens is mounted to the 4/3 to M4/3 adapter, on the Panasonic GH2 camera:
And the resulting image, at f/8, ISO 160:
24mm extension, 1:1 macro
Using the 24mm extension, corresponding roughly to using the Olympus EX-25 macro extension, the setup looks like this, note that the figure is closer to the front lens element:
With this resulting image, also at f/8 and ISO 160. This corresponds to around 1:1 magnification:
65mm extension, 2:1 macro
Finally, adding all the macro rings for a total of 65mm extension yields this setup:
Note that the figure is now very close to the front lens element. It is not easy to light the figure properly in this position, since the lens casts shadow over the subject. The resulting photo looks like this, at around 2:1 magnification, also written as 2x:
Conclusion
These macro extension rings were cheap, and not very good quality. Further, since they have no electronic contacts, they are very awkward to use. You must stop down the aperture before mounting the lens on the extension rings, which makes focusing harder. Normally, you focus at maximum aperture, and then stop down for taking the picture, which is handled automatically by the camera. But with no communication between the camera and lens, this is no longer possible.
The Olympus EX-25 extension rings allow for changing the aperture, and is probably much easier to use. However, it is also much more expensive.
At full extension, the macro rings allow for roughly 2:1 macro magnification, meaning that you can photograph an object with a diameter of half the diameter of the imaging sensor.
If you want to increase the magnification of a Four Thirds lens, but don't want to shell out the cash for the EX-25 extension ring, I would recommend that you simply crop the center of your images, rather than buy these cheap rings. The rings are not very fun to use, due to the lack of electronic contacts, and the poor quality. Keep in mind that since these rings are for the Four Thirds format, they cannot be used for Micro Four Thirds lenses. They can only be used for Four Thirds lenses.
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Macro extension rings
Using macro rings has always been a cheap trick to improve the close focusing distance of a lens. You'll notice that when focusing from infinity to a closer distance, the lens elements usually move away from the camera and the sensor. Some exceptions from this are lenses with internal focusing, or back focusing.
So what happens if you move the lens even further from the camera than what's possible with the focus ring? It turns out that this gives you an even closer focus. So what a macro extension ring simply does, is allow you to mount the lens further from the sensor, translating the focus range of the lens so that it can be used for close up work.
There are no macro rings officially available for the Micro Four Thirds mount yet. However, when using legacy lenses on an adapter, there are a wide range of macro rings to try out. Here is a set of Nikon macro rings from Jessop:
These rings contain some mechanical coupling functions to allow for the aperture information to be transfered to the camera, and for the camera to automatically stop down the lens before taking a picture. However, these functions only work on AIS capable cameras. In today's Nikon lineup, only the top models have retained this functionality.
When using the rings on a crude adapter, you can certainly forget about this functionality. You'll need to focus using a large aperture, and then alter the aperture ring manually prior to pressing the shutter release, if you want to stop down the aperture.
The thickness of the rings are 13mm, 21mm, and 31mm. When stacked in different combinations, they can give these offset distances: 13mm, 21mm, 31mm, 34mm, 41mm, 52mm and 65mm.
Normally, these rings would go between the camera mount and the lens. When using an adapter, however, they go between the adapter and the lens, as in this picture:
A Nikon-Micro Four Thirds adapter (marked with "Nik-M4/3") is mounted to the Panasonic Lumix GH1 camera, and all the macro rings are stacked between the lens and the adapter. The lens is a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AIS. Here is a video showing how to attach the adapter and lens to the camera.
When using all the macro rings above, I took this picture of a measure band, to find the largest magnification. It was taken at 4/3 aspect ratio, in which case the active sensor is 18mm wide. Since the photographed item is 13mm wide, this gives an enlargement of 18:13, or 1.4:1. This could also be expressed as 1.4x.
For comparison, the Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 macro lens is capable 1:1 enlargement (1x), which means that the largest enlargement possible would have yielded 18mm of the measurement band. The macro rings and Nikkor 50mm lens can be used to make more enlargement than the dedicated Panasonic Leica macro lens.
Using the configuration above, with 65mm extension of the lens, I was able to take this close up picture:
I stopped down the aperture to f/8 for more depth of field.
For comparison, I photographed the same object using the Olympus Zuiko 50mm 1:2 macro lens. This is the closest picture I could take with the Olympus lens, also at f/8, and with an enlargement of approximately 1:2:
Macro rings for legacy mounts can be bought cheaply on various auction sites. There are also extension tubes and bellows, which are functionally similar, but more flexible in use. Another way to achieve closer focusing is to use a reverser ring, essentially a second lens mount to be screwed into the front lens filter thread. Using a reverser ring, the lens can be mounted reversed, in which case it can be used for macro. Lenses with a normal focal length are most commonly used this way.
Please note that macro lenses are special in that the lens formula is designed for close up photography. Using ordinary lenses on extension rings or bellows is not going to give as good results, since those lenses are not designed for close focusing.
Here is another example picture using the full 65mm macro ring extension:
For this picture of a garlic, I used f/22 to achieve enough depth of field. Using such a small aperture is going to give some blurring at pixel level due to diffraction. However, in this case, I valued more depth of field higher than some dullness at the highest magnification. The diffraction effect is barely visible at 100% view.
So what happens if you move the lens even further from the camera than what's possible with the focus ring? It turns out that this gives you an even closer focus. So what a macro extension ring simply does, is allow you to mount the lens further from the sensor, translating the focus range of the lens so that it can be used for close up work.
There are no macro rings officially available for the Micro Four Thirds mount yet. However, when using legacy lenses on an adapter, there are a wide range of macro rings to try out. Here is a set of Nikon macro rings from Jessop:
These rings contain some mechanical coupling functions to allow for the aperture information to be transfered to the camera, and for the camera to automatically stop down the lens before taking a picture. However, these functions only work on AIS capable cameras. In today's Nikon lineup, only the top models have retained this functionality.
When using the rings on a crude adapter, you can certainly forget about this functionality. You'll need to focus using a large aperture, and then alter the aperture ring manually prior to pressing the shutter release, if you want to stop down the aperture.
The thickness of the rings are 13mm, 21mm, and 31mm. When stacked in different combinations, they can give these offset distances: 13mm, 21mm, 31mm, 34mm, 41mm, 52mm and 65mm.
Normally, these rings would go between the camera mount and the lens. When using an adapter, however, they go between the adapter and the lens, as in this picture:
A Nikon-Micro Four Thirds adapter (marked with "Nik-M4/3") is mounted to the Panasonic Lumix GH1 camera, and all the macro rings are stacked between the lens and the adapter. The lens is a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AIS. Here is a video showing how to attach the adapter and lens to the camera.
When using all the macro rings above, I took this picture of a measure band, to find the largest magnification. It was taken at 4/3 aspect ratio, in which case the active sensor is 18mm wide. Since the photographed item is 13mm wide, this gives an enlargement of 18:13, or 1.4:1. This could also be expressed as 1.4x.
For comparison, the Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 macro lens is capable 1:1 enlargement (1x), which means that the largest enlargement possible would have yielded 18mm of the measurement band. The macro rings and Nikkor 50mm lens can be used to make more enlargement than the dedicated Panasonic Leica macro lens.
Using the configuration above, with 65mm extension of the lens, I was able to take this close up picture:
I stopped down the aperture to f/8 for more depth of field.
For comparison, I photographed the same object using the Olympus Zuiko 50mm 1:2 macro lens. This is the closest picture I could take with the Olympus lens, also at f/8, and with an enlargement of approximately 1:2:
Macro rings for legacy mounts can be bought cheaply on various auction sites. There are also extension tubes and bellows, which are functionally similar, but more flexible in use. Another way to achieve closer focusing is to use a reverser ring, essentially a second lens mount to be screwed into the front lens filter thread. Using a reverser ring, the lens can be mounted reversed, in which case it can be used for macro. Lenses with a normal focal length are most commonly used this way.
Please note that macro lenses are special in that the lens formula is designed for close up photography. Using ordinary lenses on extension rings or bellows is not going to give as good results, since those lenses are not designed for close focusing.
Here is another example picture using the full 65mm macro ring extension:
For this picture of a garlic, I used f/22 to achieve enough depth of field. Using such a small aperture is going to give some blurring at pixel level due to diffraction. However, in this case, I valued more depth of field higher than some dullness at the highest magnification. The diffraction effect is barely visible at 100% view.
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