The manufacturers of the Pentacon Six went to great trouble to facilitate macro photography – the recording on film of very small objects at image scales up to greater than 2× life size on the film.  They produced bellows and two principal types of close-up tubes:

• manual tubes
• automatic tubes

Scanners are fine for:

• two-dimensional objects, such as paper with printing on
• still objects
• items up to a maximum size of A4

• three-dimensional objects
• living creatures (insects, small reptiles etc)
• wet items (e.g. frogs!)
• shooting plant or animal life in its natural environment or habitat.

Set-up for macro photography

In macro photography, depth of field is usually very small, sometimes tiny.  Even finding the object in the viewfinder can at times be difficult.  It is therefore necessary to work with a good tripod or a copying stand, preferably with a focussing slide (scroll down).

Methodical working is essential, and the taking of detailed notes will pay dividends in subsequent sessions.  There is a lot of extremely helpful information on this website that can save you time – for instance, by telling you at what distance from your subject you will need to work with different lenses and bellows extensions or combinations of tubes.

New information and examples, April 2017
You can see examples of depth of field in macro photography in a new page here.

Factors affecting exposure times in macro photography

As well as the amount of light illuminating the subject, two other factors affect exposure times in macro photography:

• It is generally necessary to stop down the lens as much as possible, in order to increase the depth of field.  (For an explanation of depth of field, see here.)  I recommend an aperture of at least f/14 for most occasions.  This does of course have the undesirable but unavoidable side-effect of reducing substantially the amount of light reaching the film.
  

• There is also another reason why the intensity of the light reaching the film is greatly reduced in macro photography.  The further the lens is moved from the film, which is what happens when it is mounted on bellows or extension tubes, the larger the image that it projects towards the film.  The larger the projected image, the dimmer it is.  Of course, only the central area of the projected image reaches the film.  But the intensity of the light that composes that projected image can be quite low.  In consequence, the photographer will either need to work at very slow shutter speeds or to have a lot of light illuminating the subject being photographed.  Even so, exposures of 10 or 20 seconds are not unusual in macro photography for “still life” subjects.

Light sources

Naturally, all normal light sources can be used:

• daylight
• studio lighting
• flash

Studio lighting has the advantage of giving you more control of the direction of the lighting, to improve modelling and increase or decrease contrast, and you may be able to adjust the brightness, by one of three methods:

• by moving the lights nearer to or further from the subject
• by adjusting the brightness level electrically
• by turning on/off some of the lighting.

Flash photography with macro

Using flash for macro photography can allow very small apertures (where the slow sync speed of the Pentacon Six will not be a problem).
This will:

• increase depth of field
• freeze most movement

For macro flash photography, you are better off using a lens with a fully-automatic diaphragm pin (most Pentacon Six lenses), instead of a macro lens, where it is necessary to stop down the lens manually before firing the shutter.  With wildlife, the appearance of your hand in front of your camera (to adjust the aperture) may startle your subject and lose you the shot.

Limitations on suitable lenses

While any lens with a Pentacon Six mount will fit onto the bellows or tubes, not every lens is suitable for macro work or for use with long tubes or a large bellows extension.
With the longer lenses, the image-forming “cone” of light projected by the lens is wider at the point where it enters the camera throat than with the shorter lenses.  This can result in the aperture pin lever in the camera throat casting a shadow in the image area.  There can also be some vignetting (darkening of the corners of the image).

There can also be some problems of vignetting with some other combinations of lenses and tubes or bellows.  You will find more details on this here and here.

Recommended lenses

The 80mm Biometar is recommended for most macro work, possibly mounted in reverse.  For greater camera-to-subject distance, the 120mm Biometar is also excellent.

Of course, as lenses are moved further from the camera, for instance, on bellows or extension tubes, they project a larger image circle.  The consequence of this is that even lenses designed for coverage of 35mm format (24mm × 36mm) are likely to give complete coverage of the larger “6×6” or 2¼" square format when used on bellows or extension tubes.  (“6×6” has been defined by Hasselblad as in fact 54mm × 54mm.  See details here.)  Enlarger lenses can be particularly good in this regard, and in fact the Macro Componons appear to be precisely that.

The Novoflex bellows offer interchangeable mounts, so with a Pentacon Six mount on the back and the mount of your choice on the front, it is easy to use other lenses for macro work on the Pentacon Six.

Alternatively, companies such as SRB-Griturn of Dunstable, England, can supply or even make suitable mounts.

The 80mm Arsat lens has also been recommened, especially mounted reversed on the bellows or tubes.  Arsenal made a 62mm-Pentacon Six reversing ring for this purpose.  It can be seen here. 

There exist at least two other options for macro photography:

• close-up filters
• combinations of lenses.

• they are generally cheap
• you can get into macro without bellows or extension tubes
• fully automatic aperture operation is retained
• they enable you to get closer without long bellows or tube extensions, which can lead to vignetting.

Reversing rings are available with two filter threads on them, for mounting two lenses front-to-front (either with the same or different filter threads).  The 250mm f/5.6 Telear/Arsat lens has the same filter size as the 80mm Volna/Arsat: 62mm.  If you use a 150mm lens or the 180mm Sonnar on the camera, you will need a larger filter thread for the longer lens.  Again, SRB would be a good source for such a reversing ring.

For close-up photography, Pentacon recommended two special focussing screens (called “field lenses” in their literature):

• the groundglass field lens with clear field and bisecting lines (Order No 207 330) “suited for close-ups and photomicrographs.  The bright aerial picture and a hairline cross assist in focusing.”
• the clear glass field lens with bisecting lines and 5mm division (Order No 207 350) for “photomicrographs of high enlargement as well as in combination with medical apparatuses, such as endoscopes etc. where a picture of poor light intensity will be available.”

Macro photography is one area where a mirror pre-release can be helpful.  To find out more information on this, click here.

To read about the Schneider macro lenses for the Exakta 66 (and the Pentacon Six!), click here.

It can be very helpful to avoid stray light getting into the viewfinder when shooting in macro, as this can make it difficult to view the object clearly.  This can be resolved by using the viewfinder eye cup.