My macro aspirations - your help sought

[vinny]

My bracket (made/sold by me) gives me 500mm total extension and it doesn't look too much longer than the oem bracket. http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ension+bracket
I've made a few 1:1 images with my 250mm fujinon and it's a great setup.

[ridax]

I've not found any comparisons of equivalent macro and non-macro lens images at high magnification.

Sorry no comparison images to post either, but I've tested quite a bit of lenses for sharpness at different distances. In theory, the difference of ray angles in a lens is more between 1:1 and 1:2 then between 1:2 and infinity, and practical tests confirm this, too. So I'd never forget to replace my 5.6/300 Apo-Rodagon with my 5.6/300 El-Nikkor when I switch from 1:1 to 1:2 reproduction ratio while copying flat subjects (like vintage photos) with my 8x10". Both the above are excellent lenses, and each is great at its optimal magnification. But the Apo-Rodagon is much inferior to the El-Nikkor at 1:2, and the opposite is very true for 1:1. The difference is real and can be seen in practice.

But for 3-dimentional subjects, I don't actually care for that difference. The reason is the very small f-stops necessary for DoF, at which sharpness is so degraded by diffraction that all that difference is just no more there. So for the 3-dimentional world, I'd better choose a lens that suites my aesthetic needs with its out of focus rendition and just not give a damn for anything else.