A new toy! For micro 3-d photography

[P3D Dr. George A. Themelis <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I added a new toy to my photo collection.  No, not another Realist.  It is
Minolta lens, 25 mm F2.5 Bellows Micro Rokkor-X lens.  I have been looking
for this  for a long time now.  Very rare... I have seen it in older Minolta
literature. Not too many of those were sold.

The lens is recommended for magnifications from 3x to 8x.  It has an
aperture range of f2.5 to f16.  My lens came with the M-1 adapter which
allows you to attach the lens to the camera (bellows recommended).  The lens
itself has standard microscope objective threads.  You could attach the lens
directly to a microscope (or, I guess, you could attach an ordinary
microscope objective to a camera via the M-1 adapter).  Why not just attach
the camera to a microscope instead of the objective to camera?  I think it
is easier to take pictures with the lens attached to the camera than the
camera attached to a microscope, especially at these low magnifications.
(Note that the 3x to 8x range is the magnification on the film;  the
magnification is higher in a print, viewer or projection... for example, in
the Realist 5x viewer this range becomes 15x to 40x).

In the past I have done close-up and macro stereo work using a macro lens in
my Minolta X-700.  Most subjects can be very well-photographed at 0.5 to 1
x.  At these low magnifications the subject is well-recognized.  Higher
magnifications result in specialized pictures plus one has to work against a
narrow DOF and limitted translation-induced parallax.

I am looking forward to using my new lens.  If anyone has any ideas of
interesting 3-d subjects (snowflakes in 3-D?) that can be recorded properly
at 3x to 8x, please let me know!

Many Thanks! -- George Themelis


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