Long time, no play 
X-T4 + Mikar 50mm/f4.5 (which is a Polish M42 enlarger lens) and a whole bunch of extension tubes.
DOF is incredibly small, tripods and cabel release certainly recommended.
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
X-T4 + Mikar 50mm/f4.5 (which is a Polish M42 enlarger lens) and a whole bunch of extension tubes.
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Are you sure you have enough extension tubes? 
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@paperdigits Of course not! One could never have too many extensions tubes.
Only problem is that the darling DOF gets narrower and narrower and narrower…
And then lighting difficulties appear, as well.
The main problem with the set-up above is that a focusing helix is not incorporated in the chain,
I had to move the tripods a fraction to-and-fro to nail some kind of focus.
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Stop it down to ludicrous-f, or pull out enfuse and focus-stack…
I only own two modern lenses; all the rest are pre-digital manual focus (repairing, restoring, and then shooting with vintage glass is a passion of mine).
I’m not a big fan of modern optics — and even less so of their price! — so it’s been legacy lenses all the way for me right from the start.
I came across this really interesting article the other day which is cetainly worth a read:
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While I like the idea of that blog-post (I’d even go so far to say I tend to agree) the only missing thing is the evidence. Unfortunately that is a rather big thing that is missing. The sample picture comparisons at least on my monitor look inconclusive.
I’d really like someone to come up with a good setup to measure the elusive microcontrast and put numbers behind the claim. I’m not doubting the hypothesis or even the existence of microcontrast! I want someone to back the hypothesis (that is: old glas with low element counts but already decent coatings tends to have more pop/3d/microcontrast) up with some reproducible data.
Why data? It could well be that it comes down to
- glass quality and not element count which might reduce pop.
- design compromises such as flare control
- all of the above at once
which makes it a hard to reverse engineer problem. With pure subjective claims it probably remains a plausible hypothesis.
The mentioned Cosina/Voigtländer, the older zeiss glass, are almost boutique lenses with next to no electronics. Every penny you pay for those goes towards mechanical and optical quality, not system design, electronics design, focussing motors, cheap to mass-produce…which means that they naturally can select higher glass-quality for a set pricepoint.
(If anyone has links to people trying to put numbers behind the claim, I am all ears!)
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I just got me a Lomo T-43, 40mm f4. I don’t have a focusing coil yet, but anything can be solved if you’re poor enough and in a hurry 
I simply took the mounting ring from an old extension tube, and put on a whole lot of masking tape so that it just about fits in there.
So now I can focus by pushing and pulling the lens in and out of the body just have to be careful to lift the mirror first 
A few random test-shots:
Cats are notoriously difficult to photograph, especially when 20cm away from their face, but the images also shows how sharp this actually can be when focused properly.
A ‘forced bokeh’ shot just to visualize the distortion of the blurring. A slight swirly quality it seems for this lens.
And for the crappiest portrait photograph of the year I nominate… For this one I focused and marked the floor. Had to do a couple of shots before I found the right position. Not perfectly in focus, but I gave up at this point.
Btw. my most used lens is a Olympus Zuiko 50mm 1,8, that 3,5 macro is on my list though 
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Some pictures of the lens setup. I just love the look off this tiny thing on the massive 5d
Uploading: IMG_20221211_122634_0.jpg…
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You’ve made some very valid points, @PhotoPhysicsGuy; still, it was a very interesting read.
Personally, I prefer using legacy glass purely for practical and creativity reasons — not to mention the fact that I just love vintage gear! 
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I constantly have my eyes on some 645, 6x6 and 6x7 glass, I know the feeling.
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… for use on APS-C cameras, or?
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
I am presently trying to re-educate myself on RAW development…
(New releases call for new approaches, that’s why!)
X-T4 + Hexanon AR 52/1.8
Actually, I am quite pleased with this one…
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
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More for the respective bodies with analog film.
But digitization would be with APS-C then. Then again, the time for really good deals seems to come to an end. 5-6 Years ago there were some spectacular deals to be had. I missed that opportunity.
5-6 Years ago there were some spectacular deals to be had.
Ach, Gnädige Bob!
Please permit me to disagree.
If you know where to look, and have a bit of patience,
splendid deals can still be had.
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In keeping with the floral macro theme, here is one from a while back with a Carl Zeiss Jenna Tessar 50mm f2.8 using an extension tube.
Resized for web, so I added a crop to show show detail.
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I’ve been on the hunt for a good Jenna Tessar for quite some time — they’re common enough, but all three copies I’ve acquired thus far have stuck irises (it’s a common issue with this particular lens, but it’s a real pain to fix).
I picked mine up at an estate sale, if I recall correctly for $30. It came with an Exakta 500 and extension tubes.
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Nice. It looks as though everything’s in perfect condition, too.
