Lenses for closeup photography on 4x5

[BetterSense]

For closeups, of about 4x FINAL PRINT magnification, I have used my 135mm Rodenstock enlarging lens turned backward, and I BARELY had enough bellows. I realize I can use a shorter lens, but I like to keep a respectable distance to flatten perspective. I just bought a long-rail calumet monorail to facilitate this, but I'm not sure what to do about lenses suitable for closeups. I have my 135mm enlarging lens, a 210mm Symmar convertible (converts to 300-some mm), a 210mm Wollensack Raptar copy lens, a 127mm Tominon, and some 180mm RB67 lenses. Out of theses lenses, which is most suitable for macro-range photography? Should I always turn the lens so that the front is toward the longer distance?

My enlarger-lens-turned-backward worked ok, but I think it could be better.

In the past when I wanted to shoot small things, I used 35mm, but lacking a bellows setup, I have started to use my view camera to gain movements. My subjects don't move so exposure time is not a problem, and I have gone over and over the equations but I'm still not sure of the relative benefits to shooting on a smaller format and enlarging more, versus shooting directly to a larger format and enlarging less. I have heard so many arguments both ways that I'm just not sure which is better. But the view camera worked out ok, other than the front standard being kind of big and complicating lighting.
I used

[Jim Noel]

Your Tominon may be the best of the group for your purpose.
It should be worth a few sheets of film to you to try each one and see which gives you the image you desire. You will find that the 210mm lenses are probably out because at 1:1 they require 420mm of bellows draw.

[Dan Fromm]

Um, er, ah, Jim gave you the right answer. The 127/4.7 Tominon was made for a variety of fixed-focus Polaroid cameras (CU-5, DS-34, ...) that were to be used around 1:1. I have one, use it on 2x3 Graphics. It is a decent lens close-up, much better than the 135/4.5 MP-4 Tominons I've had.

There are, though, better lenses than the 127/4.7 Tominon. If you're going to work in the range 1:6 - 6:1, look into 105/4.5 and 150/5.6 Comparons. These are optimized for small enlargements and fit a #0 shutter so are easily reversed. There are better lenses than Comparons but most are much more expensive.

The rule of thumb for reversing lenses is that lenses made to be used at magnifications below 1:1 should be reversed when used at magnifications > 1:1. This because these lenses are optimized for large subject in front, small negative behind. Above 1:1 you have small subject in front, large negative behind so have to reverse the lens to get best performance. Your formulation ("always turn the lens so that the front is toward the longer distance") is correct but isn't standard.

Reversing lenses in symmetrical shutters (in Compur/Copal/Prontor, #00, #0, #2, #3) is easy. Reversing lenses in an asymmetrical shutter (C/C/P #1) is very problematic.

In my experience camera movements are pretty useless when shooting closeup. There's no depth of field and no way to get more. The subject can usually be repositioned to best advantage, there's rarely need to use movements to do the equivalent.

Re shooting at lower magnification and enlarging more vs. shooting at higher magnification and enlarging less, in my experience getting better than 80 lp/mm at usable contrast is very difficult. That being the case, prints made by enlarging the negative > 10x won't bear close scrutiny. Take it from there.

[BetterSense]

In my experience camera movements are pretty useless when shooting closeup. There's no depth of field and no way to get more. The subject can usually be repositioned to best advantage, there's rarely need to use movements to do the equivalent.

In this case I needed shift movements for line convergence reasons.

And in my experience tilt movements for moving the focus plane are always critical when you don't have enough DOF, which is especially the case in the macro regime.

Which brings me to another point; my enlarger lens only stops down to f/32, which is like f/64 at 1:1. I know that diffraction becomes a factor at apertures this small, but I have seen people shoot miniatures with very 3D configurations and they somehow get enough DOF...do they have lenses that stop down farther than f/32 (indicated)?

[Bob Salomon]

It is probably much more then you want and you also probably do not have enough bellows to get it to 4:1 but the Rodenstock Apo Macro Sironar 120 and 180mm lenses are made just for your purpose.
See:

http://www.rodenstock-photo.com/medi...7-42__8226.pdf

[jeroldharter]

Nikkor 120mm macro lenses are fairly common used and at a reasonable price. Large format macro is a painstaking process so if I did much of it I would get a proper macro lens.

[Bob Salomon]

In this case I needed shift movements for line convergence reasons.

And in my experience tilt movements for moving the focus plane are always critical when you don't have enough DOF, which is especially the case in the macro regime.

Which brings me to another point; my enlarger lens only stops down to f/32, which is like f/64 at 1:1. I know that diffraction becomes a factor at apertures this small, but I have seen people shoot miniatures with very 3D configurations and they somehow get enough DOF...do they have lenses that stop down farther than f/32 (indicated)?

And then you may very well be into diffraction.

[BetterSense]

Right. I understand that. There's no beating physics. But the diffraction won't be any worse than a smaller format, as far as I can tell. That is, for a given DOF, there's no difference between using a smaller aperture (larger f-stop) on LF compared to using a larger aperture (smaller f-stop) on a smaller format and then enlarging. The equations say that DOF only depends on NA and magnification. So it doesn't really make sense to say "OMG diffraction will be terrible at f/200 actual!! because you will have the same amount of diffraction if you had used a 35mm camera at f/8 to get the same DOF, and enlarged.

With the same subject distance and angle of view for both formats, s2 = s1, and

\frac {\mathrm{DOF}_2} {\mathrm{DOF}_1} \approx \frac {c_2} {c_1} \frac {d_1} {d_2} \frac {m_1} {m_2} = \frac {l_2} {l_1} \frac {d_1} {d_2} \frac {l_1} {l_2} = \frac {d_1} {d_2} \,,

so the DOFs are in inverse proportion to the absolute aperture diameters. When the diameters are the same, the two formats have the same DOF. Von Rohr (1906) made this same observation, saying “At this point it will be sufficient to note that all these formulae involve quantities relating exclusively to the entrance-pupil and its position with respect to the object-point, whereas the focal length of the transforming system does not enter into them.” Lyon’s Depth of Field Outside the Box describes an approach very similar to that of von Rohr.

The next piece is whether, given the same absolute aperture size, diffraction is somehow worse when shooting to a larger format and contact printing versus shooting to a smaller format and enlarging to the same size. Since defocus spots are usually expressed in angles, then it stands to reason that the two scenarios end up being the same in the final print.

[ic-racer]

. I know that diffraction becomes a factor at apertures this small, but I have seen people shoot miniatures with very 3D configurations and they somehow get enough DOF...do they have lenses that stop down farther than f/32 (indicated)?

Mathematically and practically the only way to get good depth of field with macro and micro photography is with small film or sensor. This is one area digital wins. Large format macro is for minimizing depth of field.

Of the lenses you have listed the enlarging lens probably can't be beat if it is a six element Rodagon.

[BetterSense]

Mathematically and practically the only way to get good depth of field with macro and micro photography is with small film or sensor.

I used to think so, but then I looked at the math and realized it's not true for equal final print magnifications.