On Mon, 28 Sep 1998 18:34:05 -1000, "untung" wrote:

>I have Nikkor 105/f2.8D micro lens. Is it possible to get magnification
>greater than life size using stacked lens? If I do not have either Nikkor
>50/1.4D or diopter lenses, which one shall I get?
>
>I found about stacked lenses in John Shaw's book on photography close-up on
>nature.
>
>Thanks for any comment.

While in theory, stacking lenses should work well (that close-up lens
added to the front sure is well corrected!!!), in practice, I've never
been too happy with the results at the image edges... If you do want to do
this, the CRT 8-element Nikkor 55mm f1.2 sold by Brooklyn
camera exchange at a reasonable price (and which, reversed, makes an
excellent 5X macro lens on its own...) works well on the 105mm macro.
Better, I find, is combining on the lens used for macro a collection
of teleconverters, achromats, and tubes. A TC200/201 will give you 2X
with the AF 105, and adding a 4T achromat and/or an extension tube
will increase the available magnification. High quality images to
about 2-3X can be made this way, but image quality suffers with
much higher magnification... (all at f11-16 set on the lens...).
You can find samples of macro, some above 3X, on my web page under
"Bugs" (the highest magnification photos were taken with the
compact-version non-macro Nikkor 200mm f4 with the Sigma 1:1
achromat [made for their 90mm] combined with converters or a
tube - I found this sharper than starting with the 105mm macro...).