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What sort of lens is this!......


Tony
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It's an interesting looking lens but I'd like to see more detail.

 

In the days when I used Canon equipment I used a macro lens that had a 1 times to 5  times level of magnification. The front element was about 50mm diameter and the distance from the end of the lens to the subject with the lens at full magnification was less than 50mm. It was a wonderful macro lens but it really was difficult to approach small live creatures closely enough to use full magnification.

 

This new lens obviously seeks to reduce the size of the object that the subject sees so as to reduce the chance of frightening it away.

 

There are other problems with high magnification macro lenses. One is that you need to use a very small aperture in order to get any depth of field, but if you set a very small aperture then the image is very dim and it is difficult to see to focus. My Canon lens had a maximum aperture of f/2.8 and would close down automatically upon operating the shutter, which overcame the dim focusing problem, but still left a problem in lighting the subject, because the largish diameter of the lens and the closeness to the subject inevitably created a shadow on the subject.

 

The new lens has less of a problem of throwing a shadow, but the small diameter means a small maximum aperture (f/14?) so focusing is going to be a problem unless it is automatic, (or the lighting is very bright) and that can be difficult with large magnification macro lenses.

 

I always lit my large magnification macros with a ring flash surrounding the end of the lens, but if that method was used with the new lens it would increase the size of the thing that is seen by the subject and would kill the whole point of using a small diameter lens.

 

As I said above it's interesting, but I'd like some more detail.

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Thanks. That just confirms my reservations. Look at the shadow on the coin picture. Imagine how difficult it will be to hold the end of the lens steady at that distance from the camera.

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