[WLubarsky]

I don't know If this thread was already posted but I will try again.
Years ago I purchased new a Pentax Program Plus, and a bit later I bought a macro lens. Well the lens turned out to be useless for what I want to do: take close up pictures of small plants and flowers. Researching the subject on the net I found a recommendation (for cost) to use a short-barrel, fixed focus lens with a 1:1 magnification ratio. With these particular plants and flowers I want a good depth of focus. Since it doesn't seem that there are any Pentax lenses that match the specifications, I wonder what else I can use. Cost is very important, I'm retired.

Thank you.

[arnold]

If you can find some extension tubes, you will be able to attach a normal 50 or 100mm lens to the end of them (it). Macro photography goes hand in hand with shallow depth of field. Small apertures will help, but need lots of light.

[pepperberry farm]

cost may be important, but telling us what your actual budget is would help; my Tamron 72B was just over $100 and is a stunner of a lens....

[ChrisPlatt]

The SMC Pentax-M 50mm f/4 Macro lens goes to 1:2 without extension tube.
It is a real bargain too; a nice copy can be had for under $100.

My wife used the later A50/2.8 Macro as her "standard" lens.

Chris

[Not a Number]

As lens to subject distance decreases so does DOF. Stopping down will help. Or you can focus stack which may not be practical in the field (wind).

I don't think Pentax produced a 1:1 macro lens until the AF era but many of the 3rd party MF lenses such as from Vivitar or Tamron were capable of 1:1.

Consider Raynox lenses.
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/122-lens-clubs/74221-raynox-macro-club.html

Macro Options
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/54-pentax-lens-articles/152336-cheap-macr...lose-work.html
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/122-lens-clubs/143202-macro-any-means-necessary-club.html

[ChrisPlatt]

How would you "focus stack" with a Pentax Program Plus film camera?

Chris

[Not a Number]

How would you "focus stack" with a Pentax Program Plus film camera?

Take a separate photo for each focus setting. Scan the negatives. Stack the images. Basically the same thing you do on a digital camera except you don't have to scan the negatives. How did I make a video from time lapse photos taken with my Minolta X700? I scanned the negatives, aligned the scanned images with CombineZ to produce lossless TIF files and used resulting frames in the make video function.

[lithedreamer]

How would you "focus stack" with a Pentax Program Plus film camera?

Chris

Scan the film and do it in Photoshop?

[ChrisPlatt]

That sounds pretty cumbersome and tedious to me.

Chris

[lithedreamer]

That sounds pretty cumbersome and tedious to me.

Chris

It's kind of just how physics works. DOF gets narrower as subject distance becomes smaller, which is necessary with a wide angle macro. The alternative is something like the 100mm Macro.

[Not a Number]

That sounds pretty cumbersome and tedious to me.

Macro photography can be cumbersome and tedious. How else are you going to have the stigma and petals of a flower in focus when there is a depth difference of one inch and your best DOF is only 1/4 inch?

Running the stacking process is no more tedious than selecting the images and a few taps or mouses for "OK".

[WLubarsky]

If you can find some extension tubes, you will be able to attach a normal 50 or 100mm lens to the end of them (it). Macro photography goes hand in hand with shallow depth of field. Small apertures will help, but need lots of light.

I have seen close up pictures of small objects with great depth of field. A friend's smartphone can do it. Nothing I am photographing is more than 1" back to front.

[pentaxus]

Depth of field is a function of magnification. However, short focal length lenses go out of the depth of field more gradually so more may appear to be in focus. The phone has a shorter focal length lens. Have you seen 8x or 11x prints from the smart phone or are you just looking at the screen? An HD screen is something like 2MP (1080X1920).

[WLubarsky]

cost may be important, but telling us what your actual budget is would help; my Tamron 72B was just over $100 and is a stunner of a lens....

The Tamron is in my budget.

[WLubarsky]

If you can find some extension tubes, you will be able to attach a normal 50 or 100mm lens to the end of them (it). Macro photography goes hand in hand with shallow depth of field. Small apertures will help, but need lots of light.

This photo was taken with a smart phone, the plant and flower fairly typical, but on the small range in size. The biggest flower in no deeper than 3/4".
I would like to get pictures of the same sort of quality as the smartphone.

---------- Post added 07-06-16 at 12:04 AM ----------

cost may be important, but telling us what your actual budget is would help; my Tamron 72B was just over $100 and is a stunner of a lens....

I would buy the Tamron 72B if I could find one. A half hour of Google searching (my Google-fu is pretty good) and I haven't found anything.
I am not much of a photographer. I have to use the camera in the programmed AE mode (aperture priority).

---------- Post added 07-06-16 at 12:09 AM ----------

Depth of field is a function of magnification. However, short focal length lenses go out of the depth of field more gradually so more may appear to be in focus. The phone has a shorter focal length lens. Have you seen 8x or 11x prints from the smart phone or are you just looking at the screen? An HD screen is something like 2MP (1080X1920).

This is the photograph of one of the smaller plants and flowers posted to FaceBook. I would say the flowers are maybe a bit under 1/2" across. The whole plant is not much more than 1 1/4" from flower to base.