Wide angle to double as a macro lens for 5x7

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Hi all, I was thinking of buying a wide angle,maybe a 110xl,that I could also use as a macro lens on my 5x7 for closeups of flowers,shells,and such.I have 15" of bellows draw and would like to hear opinions from you on older or newer lenses to cover both my wide angle and macro needs...or... would two separate lenses be better?

-- Emile de Leon (Knightpeople@msn.com), April 25, 2002

Answers

There are many times where I have to shoot with a 90mm (4x5) to get details of small circuit boards. It works really well and stopped down a little gives good depth at greater than lifesize.

-- Scott Walton (walton@ll.mit.edu), April 26, 2002.

Even though I don't own a 110XL (yet :-), I'm sure that it will make a good macro lens. There is no doubt that dedicated macro lenses will perform better in the macro range, but for most purposes the 110 will serve you well in the macro range. Unless you shoot most of your shots in the macro range, you'd probably be better off with e.g. the 110XL lens. When shooting in the macro range you normally use the very center of the image circle where abberations are less pronounced anyhow. (The last statement is based on the image circle being about double the size/diameter of that for infinity.)

-- Björn Nilsson (b.w.nilsson@telia.com), April 27, 2002.

I have no macro lens for my Sinar... so I am contemplating stuffing my Macro-plannar 120 into a lens board and using it with my Sinar auto shutter.

Another option would be a second hand apo lens - they do not fetch much second hand, as they do not perform wery well at infinity - I bought my 600 apo before I knew that, and I need 1.2m of extention for 1:1... I will try it one day.

Another option might be to stack lenses - put your wide angle on the front of a long focus lens, but reverse the wide.

-- Dick Roadnight (dick.roadnight@btopenworld.com), April 27, 2002.


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