Has anyone tried the 60mm Macro-Elmarit-R with an extender? What were the results? I have never owned a Leica R camera, just in case this question seems... well, you know!(BTW, I do not mean the extender that is made for the 60mm exclusively.)

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), November 10, 2001

Answers

I've tried my 3-cam 60 Macro Elmarit-R with a 2X Extender on my Leicaflexes. It becomes a somewhat slow but excellent 120mm macro lens.

My wife collects Hummel figurines and this combination reproduces the tiny brush strokes (using Kodachrome) equal to the 60 by itself. I've only used it for three-dimensional subjects.

-- Bud (budcook@attglobal.net), November 10, 2001.

Are you speaking of teleconverters or extension tubes? The "extender that is made for the 60mm exclusively" as you stated, is an *extension tube*, which is why I pose the question. Using the 60 with an extension tube, such as the macro-adaptor-R or 3-part extension tube set, has no effect on optical quality because there isn't any glass in the tubes. The 1.4xAPO *teleconverter* is not mountable on the 60mm due to physical contact between the converter's front element and the lens' rear element. Both the non-APO 2x and APO 2x work beautifully with the 60. In fact, for exclusive use as a macro doubler I wouldn't spend the extra money on the APO, because at the normally small apertures used in macrophotography, only the central portion of the 2x optical path is utilized, and the results will be virtually on a par with the APO version.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), November 11, 2001.

Jay- Yes, I was confusing extension tubes with extenders. I was really wondering if you could have in effect, a 120mm macro lens. It appears that you can.

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), November 11, 2001.