[barondla]

Pentax Q, Pentax K bellows, Q-PK adapter, Pentax 50mm 1.7, and Pentax 540 flash. Tripod mount of aftermarket Q-PK adapter wouldn't clear bellows. So I added Kenko 25mm extension tube for clearance. 540 flash was off camera. 50mm lens was reversed for better quality. Shot at 1/13 ( pentax please hurry up with your Q-PK adapter) f5.6-8. Outdoors on a tripod.

Ant is about 2mm long! Slight cropping on full body shot and none on the head shot. No idea what magnification I am shooting at. Ants are so small I could barely see them from 1ft away with naked eye. Mostly used Q lcd to find ants. It is very hard to aim this rig. No red dot scope for this shoot. Used wireless remote to fire Q. Anything else was hopelessly soft focus. These images are the highest magnification I have ever shot at.

thanks
barondla

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[mamethot]

ewww ;-)

Just kidding. Very nice to see you exploring the possibilities of this camera.

[Na Horuk]

Interesting setup and nice shots, they appear to be very sharp, but I bet they are very very hard to focus!

[ChopperCharles]

Interesting. I find when I reverse my 50mm f1.7 everything becomes soft and unusable. Does the bellows fix that somehow?

Charles.

[JinDesu]

That is really quite crazy... 2mm across, and fits half the frame.

[crewl1]

Those mandibles! Very cool. How did you trigger the 540, optical slave?

[barondla]

Thanks guys. Triggered the 540 flash with the Pentax ttl cord. Luckily the Q was cooperating and playing well with the adapted lens. One day I never could get it to fire. Checked every thing - it just refused to flash.
thanks
barondla

[Aegon]

Interesting. I find when I reverse my 50mm f1.7 everything becomes soft and unusable. Does the bellows fix that somehow?

Charles.

Charles,

Are you using the reversed 50 on the Q or another camera?

I have a theory that the Q can be used under harder conditions due to the fact that the Q takes from only the central portion of the lens, which is generally the best portion. For example, the FA 77mm is known to be pleasantly soft at ƒ/1.8, but on the Q at ƒ/1.8 the image is still taken from the most central portion of the lens where things aren't really soft.

So my theory is that even if the reversed 50 is unusable on other cameras, it may still be useful on the Q.

[nater]

I have a theory that the Q can be used under harder conditions due to the fact that the Q takes from only the central portion of the lens, which is generally the best portion.

Well sure. It's why I'm primarily spending time searching out the C-mount lenses for 1" sensors rather than the 2/3" or 1/2" sensors. The latter work fine, but on the Q you use more of the lens, and if the lens was designed for a lower-resolution video camera, the likelihood that the Q sensor will out-resolve the lens are higher. (The downside is that the lenses for 1" sensors can be a good bit bigger than the lenses for smaller sensors, depending on focal length.)

This is why 'full frame' lenses often show improved performance on an APS-C camera (and even more so on the Q) - you are using the sweet spot of the lens, and the edges which most always have lower performance, are being 'cropped' out, so to speak.

[VisualDarkness]

That must be a huge ant because it can't be a real photo of a small one, can it?

[ChopperCharles]

I've used several 50's reversed on a K-x, and didn't like the results from any of them. I'm better off with a true macro lens (Snagged a Promaster 100mm f3.5 for a hundred bucks a while back, and then the matched 1:1 adapter for another $20 just last month).

That being said, I have a Spiratone Macrobel bellows, T-mount with an olympus adapter. Picked it up for $5 at a garage sale, and it's new in the box, never been used. Holding on to it, might snag a t-mount adapter for the Q (when I finally get a Q) and then use it similarly. Cool thing is my bellows comes with a 75mm f3.5 flat-field enlarging lens, which appears to be pretty awesome. Looking forward to trying that out

Charles.

[ChopperCharles]

Tried out the bellows with the 75mm lens.... honestly the 100mm macro with the matched 2x element on the front does a better job. Better magnification, easier to focus, and all around more pleasing to use. I'll give it a shot with a reversed 50, but I'm not expecting a lot.

Charles.

[barondla]

ChopperCharles, you should get much greater magnification with a 50mm reversed on a bellows vs your 100m macro with lifesize adapter attached. On my bellows, the 50 probably does 5X lifesize or more. Acquiring focus( use the slider), and reducing vibration is critical. 1/13 flash sync with RJ adapter didn't help.

Are you comparing the 75 on bellow vs 100/filter. Or both on bellows? If both on bellows, your macro should do much greater mag since it already does lifesize without help.
Ext I will try OM 20 macro on bellows.
thanks
barondla

[monochrome]

A friend just gave me an elderly Soligor 180/3.5 screwed into a Pentax M42 single rail bellows unit. The bellows has a tripod mount ....

I wonder . . . . .

[baro-nite]

For me the jury's still out on the value of the Q for extreme macro. Yes, you can fill the frame with a lower magnification ratio and have similar resolution, but once you go beyond 1:1 you're talking about short working distances whether you are shooting 2:1 on the Q or 6:1 on APS-C. Of course you don't need as much extension to get 2:1, so the Q does have that edge. But I suspect the Q's main macro edge is at lower magnifications, 1:1 and lower on the Q. In this range you can just use a normal macro lens on the Q, with comfortable working distances, where to get equivalent images on APS-C you'd need reversal, extension, and/or diopters, and hence very short working distances.

That said, I will certainly be doing some experiments beyond 1:1 on the Q!