[hooferinsane]

Hi, have always had this film lens, never had much success with macro few times I have tried it on my K10d. Because it is a lens that was designed for film, will the minimum focussing distance incr due to the incr in focal length that a film lens gives. Never had a really sharp image yet with it, any advice using it would be appreciated

Cheers


Brian

[pxpaulx]

Hi, have always had this film lens, never had much success with macro few times I have tried it on my K10d. Because it is a lens that was designed for film, will the minimum focussing distance incr due to the incr in focal length that a film lens gives. Never had a really sharp image yet with it, any advice using it would be appreciated

Cheers


Brian

No the properties of the lens will not change now that you're using it on a digital camera. What does change is the area of the captured image. Assuming the lens is a 1:1 macro lens (meaning it can capture an image equal to the size of the actual sensor), when you used the lens on FF it could capture an image (at closest focus) the size of the actual film frame (i.e. 24x36mm). Now that you are using an aps-c size sensor (film frame size of approximately 25.1 × 16.7 mm), the lens will capture an image of that actual size (again at close focus).

[baro-nite]

As per the K10D manual, turn off shake reduction when shooting macro. Flash and/or tripod really help for getting sharp macro shots.

[pxpaulx]

As per the K10D manual, turn off shake reduction when shooting macro. Flash and/or tripod really help for getting sharp macro shots.

Does it really say that?! I've always had good results with handheld macros and SR, though I can't recall if I owned my 50mm macro back when I had the K10d.

[tclausen]

Does it really say that?! I've always had good results with handheld macros and SR, though I can't recall if I owned my 50mm macro back when I had the K10d.

I think that it does say that. That said, the K10D has a nice "SR off" switch directly on the body....

With later bodies, deactivating SR is an ordeal of menus, and I've not bothered to turn it off when doing macro work with the K-01.

[baro-nite]

So far as I know every Pentax camera with SR has the same note in its manual: SR "may not fully reduce camera shake when taking close-up shots ... turn off the Shake Reduction function and use the camera with a tripod".

[Canada_Rockies]

Except that in my experience chasing bugs with a tripod just does not work. I use my M 100/4 macro with SR on, hand held, when chasing bugs. I'm using a K10d also. There is a fine point between ISO, shutter speed and aperture that has to be learned for you, but using Catch in Focus with my M works really well. As long as I get the angle correctly so that all the bug is in focus.

This year's project is to try the AFA 1.7X with the macro. Should be interesting, to say the least. 170mm, f/6.8.

[Digitalis]

you can do Macro photography hand-held. I find using flash is essential - wireless flash is a great deal of fun with macro photography, and flash prevents camera shake and subject motion from being an issue. I generally turn SR off for macro work, and I only use manual focus - I use a sigma 180mm f/3.5 APO and the legendary Pentax FA*200mm f/4.


Sigma 180mm f/3.5 APO EX - Wireless AF540 used.