Macro lenses vs. bellows/extension rings

[David Brown]

Um, thanks, Chuck and Rembrandt. I appreciate the recent comments, but this is an old thread and I've worked some of these issues out ...

(including some turnover of gear)

[panastasia]

My son has been using the Rokkor 135 f:2.8 (mid 70's vintage) on extension tubes. He has gotten excellent results near 1:1 and lower reproduction ratios. We looked at slides taken with that combo side-by-side with Olympus 90mm macro shots (about 1980 vintage lens) and 100mm f:4 Macro-Elmar shots, and his work looked just fine by comparison. The person shooting the Oly macro wasn't expecting much, he's a professional photographer who's done extensive macro work over the last 20+ years, and was impressed by the Rokkor's performance.

Lee

I know this thread is old but it's the "macro forum", so I'd like to add to this post: Back in the late 70's, the 100mm f3.5 MC Rokkor macro lens (helical focus) was deemed "the best macro lens ever tested of all those tested to date" (at the time). It was a bold statement made by someone testing/comparing macro lenses for a major photo magazine.

[dynachrome]

If I remember the issue, Modern Photography tested the 90mm f/2.5 Vivitar Series 1 when it first came out and declared it to be the sharpest lens it had ever tested. I have the 90/2.5 Series 1 lens in Canon FD mount. Over time I have accumulated many other Canon mount macro lenses in this range. These include two Vivitar 100/2.8 (22XXX...), three versions of the Cosina-made 100/3.5: Vivitar, ProMaster and Phoenix and two other lenses which can be used on the Canon FD cameras. These are the Tamron 90/2.5 SP (2nd verison) and a 100/4 Canon FLM bellows lens. All of these are good lenses. My favorite is still the 90/2.5 Series 1 but I am mostly using one of the 100/2.8 Vivitars and one of the 100/3.5 Cosina-made lenses. The 100/2.8 will reach 1:1 without additional extension and the 100/3.5 lenses are nice and light. I would say that the 100/2.8 has more modern coating than the older 90/2.5 Series 1. The rokkorfiles website tested the 100/3.5MC Rokkor macro lens against the newer f/4 model and found the f/4 lens to be slightly better. I also have many macro lenses in Minolta mount but I don't have either of these Rokkors. My 100/4 Bellows Rokkor-X is supposed to have the same formula as the 100/4 with the focusing mount. It is a very good lens but not as convenient for many purposes as my other Minolta mount macro lenses with focusing mounts.