Photography Question

USFK · April 6, 2008 10:14AM

I am new to this board,but have been collecting for over 30 years. I have a Canon 5D camera with several lens, but unfortunately no macro lens. It seems like the consensus on the board is that the Canon 100MM 2.8 Macro is the best choice for coin photography. In the 70s when I was big on photography I used close-up filters on my 35MM Camera for macro photography. I know that Canon has a fairly expensive close-up filter (500D) for macro work. I am semi-retired (our company lost our government contract and I refused to work for the new company at a 40% pay cut doing the same job) and it would be a lot cheaper to purchase the close-up filter thant he 100MM Macro Lens. Has anyone had any experience using the close-up lens and is that a viable alternative to a regular macro lens. I will probably start listing on ebay again more to give me something to do than needing the money and I know that the picture can make a big difference when listing.

JP

Raybo · April 6, 2008 10:28AM

How about extention tubes or a reversing ring?

Ray

stev32k · April 6, 2008 10:32AM

The Canon 500D is an excellent close up lens for hand held work. However, imaging coins should be done with a copy stand and in that situation an extension tube is a much better option (cheaper to).

RWB · April 6, 2008 10:34AM

The type of close-up lenses you describe work well up to about +3 diopters, provided you use small lens opening to limit aberrations. (These are simple magnifying lenses.) Some companies also offer multi-element, color corrected versions at considerably higher prices, but these are usually designs for use on a specific lens. Either option is still cheaper that buying a 100mm macro, although a lot of used equipment is coming on the market and you might try the Buy/Sell/Trade board. (The weak economy encourages some to buy others have to sell.)

Use your normal lens and the close-up lenses, and you can get good full coin shots of dollars and half dollars. You can also stack the lenses to get more magnification, although that also increases image distortion.

Extension tubes are also good choices and will cost about the same as a close-up lens set.

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messydesk · April 6, 2008 10:39AM

One of the keys to good coin pictures is having enough room to light the coin with a camera in the way. I've used close-up lenses before and you can get satisfactory results. I'd put it on a lens in the 100-150mm range and see what kind of results you get. What lenses do you have? If I recall, buying a used, older manual focus macro lens is not an option for the Canon dSLRs, correct?

mgoodm3 · April 6, 2008 10:55AM

What lenses have you got? The 500D or 250D will give a bit of extra magnification. A couple of extension tubes or a teleconverter will also give you some extra mag.

There are adapters for using the older Canon lenses on new Canon cameras.

USFK · April 6, 2008 11:00AM

I currently have the following lens: 14MM F2.8 L II and 2 telephoto lens (24-105L F4 IS and 70-200L F4 IS). From what I understand the old EF manual lens also work on the new canon cameras, but the old FL lens do not (unfortunately I have several old FL lens from my old canon F1). Anyway, I appreciate all the comments. I will probably go ahead and get the close-up lens or extension tube and see how that works. The problem is that I am living in Korea and while I do get APO mailing priviliges, as a military retiree and not having SOFA status, I can only recieve mail up to 16ounces so I would have a problem at this time buying the macro lens from the US. Camera stuff in Korea is 1.5 to 2 times what I can get from a camera shop in the US.

JP

RWB · April 6, 2008 11:05AM

You should be able to find both close-up lenses and extension tubes in 2nd hand shops and local camera shops as used items for good prices. Look for Tiffen, Canon, Nikon, Pentax brand close-up lenses in the size needed to fit one of your zoom lenses. For extension tubes either search for Canon, or ones with a T-adapter for your camera, and a suitable lens mount (this will be the difficult part).

mgoodm3 · April 6, 2008 11:32AM

I added a 25mm extension tube to my Nikon 18-70 zoom (set to 70 mm) and I can get a Morgan full frame with about 4.5 inches of working distance

That ain't bad.

YaHa · April 6, 2008 12:03PM

mrearlygold · April 6, 2008 12:07PM

JCMhouston · April 6, 2008 12:12PM

This is using an Olympus E300, 14-45 kit lens with a +1 Quanteray close up filter.

It could be sharper with a good macro, but so far I haven't spent the money for one. This is reduced from the orginal 1200x1200 as cropped image.

Photography Question

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