Art V.

Hi all,
Inspired by Tito and Bold and their anamorphic Lens-cyclopedia, I decided to try and make a list of low power diopters useful for anamorphic video. Using the info in this thread and searching on the web, I compiled a list which may be useful for anyone looking for suitable diopters.
I've attached the list as PDF. Feel free to comment and/or correct. The list may (hopefully) end up as an add-on to the online Lens-cyclopedia.
Diopters.pdf

Thanks Premini! I emailed him and I'm now a very happy owner of the Redstan +0.25 Doublet. A real gem! Only 8 made. Sharpness and flare are incredible. 
  I'm excited about the SRL Magic rangefinder for my baby Hypergonar set up but It's still gonna be important to use achromatic doublets to get optimal image quality from the anamorphic at close range.
I stack two Tokina +0.4 Achromatic diopters with a Marumi DHG Achromat Macro Close Up 330 (+3) 72mm and get really nice images. The image I attached was with this setup.
 
The Marumi is very nice and not much money compared to the others. The Polaroid Close - Up 500D is nice and cheap!

I found the cheapest way to get a 72mm +0.5 diopter filter lens, which is less than $20.
Bought a Tamron Close Up Adapter for 28-200mm Lens and a 72mm uv filter, $0.99--the cheapest one.  Through out the UV filter's glass and replace with the Tamron glass, which is easy to take apart.  Their size fits perfectly. 

1 ebay, local camera shoops creglist.
2 was wondering my self but i attached my to the front just to be sure
3 i super glued industrial one not that wall mart crap to the front of the lens 95 to 80 step down ring and just Screw 80mm filters to it.
 
some examples of it

Hello,
Long time lurker, finally decided to register to learn and contribute.  I've been doing a little testing with some of my Contax Zeiss glass as a taking lens to my Iscorama.  Previously, I've only used a Helios 44-2.  The Zeiss is noticeably sharper and seems to work well.  Sorry, no lens flares here - just a quick test of overall sharpness and bokeh.
 

 

 
I tried using a Contax Zeiss 45mm f2.8 pancake, which made a a nice, compact setup, but it unfortunately wasn't as sharp and I'd hoped for.
 
Drew

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/b-w-filters-are-fighting-lens-mildew-with-uv-light--27637
Pretty interesting device.
 
 

Regarding curvature:
I've found quite a bit of variability in curvature of macro images taken with the iscorama, ranging from none at all, to "extreme"... almost difficult to look at, depending upon which supplemental lens I use, whether it's mounted normally or reversed, and which primary lens the Isco is used with. I've recently scavenged two objectives from badly damaged (totally non-repairable) lenses, a Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 ED AF, and a Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 ED AF. These objectives, both 77mm, have ED glass, thus I was eager to see how they worked as supplemental lenses on the Iscorama. Using a Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8 as the primary, the Sigma was a "dog"... very curved field (sharp in the center), which became much flatter and sharp all over when a Nikon 4T close-up lens was first put on the Iscorama, then the Sigma. This optic was used normally... not reversed. When mounted reversed it's pretty bad... unusable. The Nikon 80-200mm objective was excellent used reversed on the Isco, with a slight bit of curvature across the image. Wnen used flipped the other way with the front toward the subject as when manufactured, the image is absolutely flat, edge to edge... probably the best in my inventory. I've rigged up a special test jig... a rail with a simple camera mount on one end and a sliding articulated "test subject carrier" that allows me to evaluate each add-on lens for field curvature, sharpness, chromatic aberration, etc, when used on the Iscorama, so any curvature (or lack of)  that I observe, is "real". Here's an image taken with the same lens combination as the bumblee bee posted near the beginning of this thread... Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama compression module, Soligor 90-230mm objective  reverse mounted on the Isco, and a Panagor 85-205mm objective reverse mounted on the Soligor. This combination has strong curvature, but the effect is somewhat "masked" by the weird bokeh produced by the iscorama. 

Hi Bootsie...
Thanks! Here are some quick photos of two of my shooting rigs, with an explanation for each pic.
The image above shows my set-up for shooting with a high magnification supplemental lens reverse mounted on the iscorama, using the Isco on my Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8. The bracket is made from two strips of hardware store aluminum, drilled to allow mounting with a knob onto the tripod mount of the camera. The angle of the arms is adjustable to allow for different sized foil reflectors to be used at various close working distances. This is a special short-arm bracket for working very close to a subject when there's not much room to move around. The Iscorama has the back end (50mm Nikon mount section removed.  Attached at that point is a 52mm to 49mm step-down ring. Onto that are mounted three empty 52mm filter rings to allow the Isco to be mounted on any of my primary lenses having a 52mm filter thread. This ensures that the protruding back element of the Isco compression module doesn't come into contact with the primary lens glass. This three ring "spacer" then serves as a convenient place to attacht an old tripod mount (upside-down) from a junk telephoto lens, which is used as an anchor point for a bowl flash diffuser made from the dish found in a particular brand of frozen dinner. The plastic diffuser has a moveable black piece that allows for soft directional lighting. This diffuser mounts atop the lens using the silver knob on the repurposed tripod mount. The ring resting between the two lenses is a 72 to 52mm step-down ring. All my supplemental lenses have been set up with 52mm rings to mount on the Isco, which is fitted with the 72-52mm ring. This simplifies mounting any of my add-on lenses onto the Isco. Plus, the Iscorama's filter ring is plastic, and subject to wear and possible cross-threading when I'm working rushed. The metal step-down ring saves the Isco's threads, and results in faster lens swapping. The larger lens on the left is the front cell from a junk Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens... set up for reverse mounting with a macro-reverse adapter ring, and is incredibly sharp, but has a curved field. With the Isco mounted on the 85mm, it gives a "field width" of about 29mm at a lens-to-subject of 6.5 cm. The smaller lens on the right is the large "common objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo microscope, mounted in a cell I've constructed from six empty 52mm filter rings. This mounts on the Isco with the front of the objective toward the subject... the same way it's mounted on the microscope. It's apochromatic, has a huge clear aperture of about 32mm, and gives a field width of about 40mm with some vignetting, at a lens-to-subject distance of a bit over 10 cm. Using a 2x teleconverter doubles the magnification and halves the working distance on all my supplemental lenses..

Here's the rig assembled with the Vivitar 28-210mm element mounted on the Isco.The two foil reflectors clipped to the threaded rods are adjusted to direct additional flash lighting to the diffuser. Behind the supplemental lens you can see the knurled rubber ring used to "lock" the Isco at infinity. This was scavenged from a junk lens and was the right size to work onto the Isco. It still allows the lens to focus properly, but totally protects against accidentally altering the focus. The 85mm is fitted with a similar band.

Here's an oblique side view showing how the reflector support posts are rigged, plus how the diffuser is mounted on the old tripod mount. The reflectors can be mounted inside or outside the posts. The black clip provides more clearance for my right hand to operate the camera than clothes pins would, as used on the left reflector.

Here's a bracket I've rigged for night photography. It's particularly useful for shooting when the Isco is mounted on my old 200mm Micro-Nikkor. The cross-bar prevents the arms from shifting position and is a convenient place to mount a small positionable flashlight used for focusing. This "focus assist" light is pre-aimed to provide illumination at the point of focus. The black "flap" is my "direct flash" shield, which mounts like a lens cap onto the front of any of my supplemental lenses. It's positioned to block direct light from the camera pop-up flash, or small speedlight, from striking the subject, creating flat lighting and overexposure. All shooting is done in the fully manual mode, usually at f/16 to f/32 (200mm Micro-Nikkor). Flash lighting is redirected around the end of the lens by the reflectors, which can be adjusted to vary light intensity and shadow angle from either side. The shield is made from a Raynox UAC-2000 universal lens adapter sold with several Raynox close-up lenses, but available for purchase separately. The black flap material is cut from a polypropylene plastic notebook divider. The lens mounted on the Iscorama is the objective from a junk Soligor 450mm lens... extremely sharp, and has a great flat field. It gives a field width of 12.5 cm at a working distance of 31 cm.

Here's the night photography set-up all ready to go. 

This nursery web spider and nestful of hatchlings was taken in complete darkness with the rig shown in the previous photo, but with a bowl diffuser mounted on the lens instead of the light shield. The reflectors were positioned to direct additional light onto the subject. I have several bowl diffusers that can mount on a lens just like the direct flash shield, with the Raynox adapter.

This last photo shows a partial inventory of supplemental lenses for using on the Iscorama, most being front cells from junk lenses. Although I have add-on lenses by different manufactures that are from lenses of the same focal length, they produce different "bokeh" and have variability in flatness of field, image color bias, and contrast. 
If you have any questions, need additional info, or whatever... just ask. Thanks!

Hi Julian...
Thanks for the response. After a close family friend passed away years ago I arranged for the sale of his old Arriflex II-C camera, His Iscorama lens was given to me by his niece as a "thank you". I've used it for years, shooting slides, then shelved it when I "went digital". Several years ago I stumbled across the EOSHD website and it rekindled my interest in using it for digital work. It's only fairly recently that I've played around with it with the idea of adapting it for close-up shooting. I'm still not fully up to speed with it when working at close distances. The very shallow DOF at high magnifications is a problem, and working with mongrel supplementary lenses scavenged from junk lenses is "iffy" at times. There's a tremendous amount of variability in image quality when I mount add-on lenses on the Isco, depending upon which primary lens I'm using. Through quite a bit of testing I've created separate sets of supplementary lenses to work with the Isco when mounted on specific primary lenses. A few of my add-on lenses do vignette a bit, which is cropped away preserving the normal decompressed aspect ratio. I haven't run any focus / compression tests at anything closer than about three feet, but feel as you do, that if I leave the Isco at infinity there probably won't be a shift in the amount of "squeeze". 
Here are a few sample images, all taken using an old Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8...  stopped down to f/16 or f/22, with a variety of supplemental lenses. The 85 and the Iscorama both have their focusing ring "locked" at infinity with wide rubber bands, focusing is achieved by moving the camera. Lighting is from either the pop-up flash, or a small speedlight bounced off foil covered cards or shot through a home-made bowl diffuser.

Forget-me-nots, 85mm Nikkor-H, Iscorama, objective from a junk Soligor 450mm reverse mounted on the Isco.
 

Orb weaver leg regeneration, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective. I really like the bokeh here (out of focus evergreen branches).
 

Web repair, 85mm with Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective reversed on the Isco, with a Soligor 90-230mm zoom lens objective reversed on the 450mm.
 

Bee, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscoama, with a Soligor 90-230mm objective reversed on the Isco, and a Panagor 85-205mm objective reversed on the Soligor.
 

Freshly moulted Funnel Weaver, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, with the objective from a Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens reversed on the Isco. 
 

Tiny fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and the objective from the Vivitar 28-210 reversed on the Isco.
 

Baby funnel weaver with a fruit fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and a Raynox MSN-202 close up lens on the Isco. This add-on lens is mounted on an adapter ring that fits the Isco, not in the "snap-on" adapter supplied by Raynox.
The results I've been getting with the Iscorama are very encouraging. It's been great for general photography, but seems to work well up close too. Shooting anamorphic macro images is great... but there are a huge amount of "throw-aways"... more than with using a macro lens without the Iscorama. Shooting extreme close-ups with the Isco is probably "pushing the envelope" a bit, but I'm getting enough decent images to keep me at it. I've been asked why I'm "wasting my time" with the old isco, and been advised that shooting wide angle and cropping might be easier. Having done that years ago... there's no comparison. I just like the look and feel of the anamorphic images better. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In the end, we never stop talking about these suckers across multiple threads, so I'm gonna try to compile as much information as I can into this one.
 
As in most cases, diopters are cheaper than anamorphics, I ended up with a lot of them, from multiple brands and multiple performances. The key was never go where everyone else is trying to find. Got the classics too, but that was luck.
 
Anyway, let's go to the undeniable favorite: Tokina +0.4 Achromatic diopter. My only complain about it is: why aren't you bigger?! My first lens was the LA7200 and I took quite a while to find the 105mm.
 
The next lenses all had different thread sizes. I could filter the Hypergonar on 77mm or 86mm, the Kowa with 72mm, Sankor 72mm too, Isco 54 at 95mm or 86mm and had a plan of an alternative 86mm front for the Lomo Squarefront, which didn't go through. Anyway, if I started to look for all these sizes of diopters, I'd go broke.
 
My salvation were the Series 9 filters. If someone isn't familiar with these, they come as unthreaded glass, that you put into an adapter that can range between 67mm and 86mm. That pretty much covers all lenses. I got adapters for 72, 77 and 86. The glass itself has around 83mm diameter.
 
Tiffen Series 9 filters are not in production anymore, so you can pick them off cheap ($1-10), even though they're not so common. The adapters are a bit harder to find.
 
After that, I went crazy on other brands as they showed up with decent sizes. Got 77mm Spiratones +0.5 and +0.25 for $6, 86mm +0.6 Fujinon, 72mm +1.25 Fujinon, 95mm +0.25 Pentax (for the 135-600mm Pentax Zoom), 82mm +0.75 Canon (1300H), etc, all very cheap. Some of them are real heavy, and I don't know if they're achromatics or single elements.
 
The advantage of the bigger ones is, less vignetting, even when you go wide, and, the sharpness is increased, since you don't get corner areas.
 
Finally, I found a couple 4.5" ones (around 114mm), that require special adapters, like Series 9. These adapters are impossible to find! I'm making a couple myself, as I trust threads more than tape. :P
 
EDIT Dec 07, 2014
 
Why Look for Low Powered Diopters
 
There's a common question going around, of WHY fraction diopters are better than full numbers, so I'm addressing that here too. Rich has a good explanation too >here.
 
As you can see below in the math section, the numbers correspond to certain maximum and minimum focus distances. When it comes to anamorphic lenses, what is the most common minimum focus distance? Something between 1.5m and 2m (or 5 to 7 feet, imperial scale).
 
Iscoramas have 2m minimum focus. Kowas, Sankors and most dual focus projector lenses are set to 1.5m minimum focus. For most shots, this distance is greater than the distance you want to put between the camera and your subject, which leads to being unable to focus properly - also, it's a pretty messed up distance for working indoors.
 
What a +0.4 or +0.5 diopter does is turn this "near 2m minimum focus distance" into "near 2m MAXIMUM focus distance" (see math below, seriously), allowing you to frame and shoot freely indoors and much closer to your subjects. If you want extreme close ups, then you need to have stronger diopters, but a +0.5 is a key tool for "standard" shots.
 
Achromats are also better, but they have their own explanation below too.
 
Focus and Anamorphic Compression
 
Another thing that relates directly to diopters is the lens compression. Most of our 1.5x or 2x stretch lenses only have that proportion when focused to infinity. Things change when you twist the focus ring. As you get closer to minimum focus, the less compression you have. 2x lenses tend to go towards 1.7x or 1.8x, Iscoramas get very close to 1.3x. 
 
When unsqueezing your footage, this compression disparity can make shots look different from the rest of the footage, as if it was shot with a different lens. In a technical level, it really was a different optical path.
 
Using diopters you get rid of using the shorter distances on your focus ring and keep your compression constant throughout the shots.
 
DISCLAIMER: I don't know how this relates to baby anamorphics, and this CERTAINLY does not affect focus through lenses since you don't change the distance between the anamorphic elements.
 
//EDIT.
 
Strength measuring:
 
Fujinon: The first number is their maximum focus distance, the second number is the thread size. For example, a 16086 reaches 160cm at infinity (+0.6) and has 86mm thread. 190101, 190cm at infinity focus, 101mm thread.
 
Canon: The newest series (250D and 500D) measures in millimeters their maximum distance. 250mm equals +4 and 500mm equals +2. The "D" stands for Double element. The older ones use the same measuring, 1300H = 1300mm, +0.75. There's also a 900H, 105mm, which is a like +1.1.
 
When nothing is marked on it, good luck with testing the thing. It's usually not hard, but most of them have information lying around the web.
 
Thread size:
 
As well as regular threads, some are marked with a C after the number (mostly 86C, 95C and 105C), that means the thread on this filter is coarse, 1mm pitch. Our regular (fine) threads have .75mm pitch. There are adapters for these too, like the one below, from 86mm fine to 86C.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/350325079425
 
Minimum and Maximum focus distance:
 
Just realized that I haven't explained the math relating diopter strength and maximum focus range! Since most anamorphics perform better when focused closer to infinity, a diopter gives great help in "faking" it optically. A close up filter "sets" infinity just a couple meters/feet away, so anything BEYOND that certain point will be IMPOSSIBLE to focus.
 
Of course, this will NOT follow the lens' focus marks. Infinity on the lens now equals the diopter maximum focus distance.
 
Now, the numbers:
 
S = diopter strength (+0.5, +0.6, +1, +2, etc)
MaxFm = maximum focus distânce, measured here in METERS
 
MaxFm = 1 / (S)
 
Ha! I bet you expected something waaaay more complex, right? Some examples are never bad, so let's get to it. I'll use +0.5, +1.25 and +2 as sample strengths.
 
MaxFm = 1/(0.5) = 1/(1/2) = 1 x 2/1 = 2 meters
MaxFm = 1/(1.25) = 1/(5/4) = 1 x 4/5 = 0.8 meters
MaxFm = 1/(2) = 1/2 = 0.5 meters
 
If you live in a country where imperial scale prevails over the metric system, you just gotta do a quick fix to the expression.
 
S = diopter strength (+0.5, +0.6, +1, +2, etc)
MaxFf = maximum focus distânce, measured here in FEET
 
MaxFf = (3.3 / S)
 
Same examples from above, now in feet
 
MaxFf = 3.3/(0.5) = 1/(1/2) = 3.3 x 2/1 = 6.6 feet
MaxFf = 3.3/(1.25) = 1/(5/4) = 3.3 x 4/5 = 2.6 feet
MaxFf = 3.3/(2) = 3.3/2 = 1.6 feet
 
Regarding minimum focus distance, I'd say anything closer than half maximum focus distance is gonna look pretty bad already. With high power close ups (+2 and up), I'd say anything closer than 3/4 of your maximum focus distance is gonna be pretty bad already.
 
Of course, this "minimum focus distance" image quality has A LOT of influence from the anamorphic. Also, achromatic diopters will improve almost everything you could imagine.
 
Since I've just mentioned them, here's a list of achromatic diopters, with their strength, manufacturer, price range, etc.
http://fuzzcraft.com/achromats.html
 
Price range:
 
Just for checking, here is a list of the most common lenses and their outgoing price.
 
Tokina +0.5 72mm - $150
Kenko +0.5 72mm - $90
Tokina +0.4 72mm Achromatic - $350
Kenko +0.3 105mm - $350
Canon +2 72mm Achromatic - $100
Sigma +1.6 62mm Achromatic - $20
Angenieux +0.25 82mm - $330
Kinoptik +1 82mm Achromatic - $530
Foton-A +1 or +1.25 - $900 (GONE!)
Tiffen +0.5 to +2 138mm - $50 and up
Tiffen +0.5 to +5 Series 9 - $1-50
Tiffen/Kodak Series 9 Adapters - $20-40
Tiffen +0.5 to +2 4.5" - $10-50 (RARE)

It's one thing to put together a good anamorphic rig, but you'll eventually have to understand widescreen composition.  David Boardwell's video is a fantastic introduction to widescreen technologies and composition.
 
 

Hi Tito, Dan...
Thanks for your comments. Although I only shoot stills, some of the info I've provided might work with film / video. The decision to go with diopters made from junk lens objectives was purely economic, since... being retired,  I don't have much money to put into this activity. The results might be far better for those folks who want to try doing this with more "high end" cameras. I'm using a Nikon D40 and D60, both relatively poor (and limited) high ISO performers, so I'm stuck working at !S0 100 to 400. 
I've found that good junk lenses to scavenge front objectives from are those primes having a focal length of 100mm, or greater, or zooms having a top end of at least 200mm. Some lenses, certain Vivitars in particular, can be a nightmare to dissassemble. Sometimes a dead film camera having a non-interchangeable zoom lens can serve as the donor for a usable strong diopter. The delicate "surgical procedure" being performed below is to remove the lens from a long section of unwanted barrel. This particular optic is the objective from an old Olympus IS-3 DLX film camera that spent a few minutes in the surf at a local beach.
Although the longest focal length is 180mm, it still works well, although the field has quite a bit of curve to it. It's used when I want critical sharpeness in the center and totally blown bokeh at the edge of the field.  Reversed on the Isco it gives a field width of 28mm at a working distance of 6.5cm. I should mention that all my working distance measurements are from the subject to the longest part of the barrel left on the objective. In some cases the lens comes off easily, having a short length of barrel that serves as a built in lens shade when reversed on the Isco. Longer lengths of barrel have to be shortened to provide usable working distance... as with the lens above. Also, testing a junk lens objective and having it "bomb" on a particular primary lens is no reason to give up on it. Some objectives I've tried worked terrible with the Iscorama on my Nikkor-H 85mm, were buried in the back of a cabinet, only to be pressed into service later after being tested with the Isco on the 200mm micro nikkor and found to produce brilliant results. Anyone contemplating buying "junk" lenses to rob objectives from should "buy cheap" and not be put off by internal fungus, haze, or cracked elements... providing the objective itself isn't involved. Steer clear of lenses with bent or badly dinged filter rings that might not be able to accept a macro reverse adapter ring.

Here's the "bowl" diffuser and "direct flash" shield I use. The UAC-2000 runs about $8.00 at big NYC stores.
All the macro shooting I do is hand held... for a reason. Focusing in most cases is "problematic, with most subjects being live creatures going about their business, or inanimate objects being blown around by wind. Working free-hand alows me to constantly shift the camera, following the subject's change in position. I do have a favorite mop handle to steady my hands, or lean on in cases where I might become overbalanced and fall forward. Below is an example of a shot where I leaned on a stick and moved left and right "shopping" for the particular out of focus elements seen behind the spider. A very minor shift in camera position at high magnification can produce a radical change in background appearance.

If anyone tries shooting anamorphic macro video, I'd really like to see it. Thanks!
 
 

Hi Bootsie...
Thanks! Here are some quick photos of two of my shooting rigs, with an explanation for each pic.
The image above shows my set-up for shooting with a high magnification supplemental lens reverse mounted on the iscorama, using the Isco on my Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8. The bracket is made from two strips of hardware store aluminum, drilled to allow mounting with a knob onto the tripod mount of the camera. The angle of the arms is adjustable to allow for different sized foil reflectors to be used at various close working distances. This is a special short-arm bracket for working very close to a subject when there's not much room to move around. The Iscorama has the back end (50mm Nikon mount section removed.  Attached at that point is a 52mm to 49mm step-down ring. Onto that are mounted three empty 52mm filter rings to allow the Isco to be mounted on any of my primary lenses having a 52mm filter thread. This ensures that the protruding back element of the Isco compression module doesn't come into contact with the primary lens glass. This three ring "spacer" then serves as a convenient place to attacht an old tripod mount (upside-down) from a junk telephoto lens, which is used as an anchor point for a bowl flash diffuser made from the dish found in a particular brand of frozen dinner. The plastic diffuser has a moveable black piece that allows for soft directional lighting. This diffuser mounts atop the lens using the silver knob on the repurposed tripod mount. The ring resting between the two lenses is a 72 to 52mm step-down ring. All my supplemental lenses have been set up with 52mm rings to mount on the Isco, which is fitted with the 72-52mm ring. This simplifies mounting any of my add-on lenses onto the Isco. Plus, the Iscorama's filter ring is plastic, and subject to wear and possible cross-threading when I'm working rushed. The metal step-down ring saves the Isco's threads, and results in faster lens swapping. The larger lens on the left is the front cell from a junk Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens... set up for reverse mounting with a macro-reverse adapter ring, and is incredibly sharp, but has a curved field. With the Isco mounted on the 85mm, it gives a "field width" of about 29mm at a lens-to-subject of 6.5 cm. The smaller lens on the right is the large "common objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo microscope, mounted in a cell I've constructed from six empty 52mm filter rings. This mounts on the Isco with the front of the objective toward the subject... the same way it's mounted on the microscope. It's apochromatic, has a huge clear aperture of about 32mm, and gives a field width of about 40mm with some vignetting, at a lens-to-subject distance of a bit over 10 cm. Using a 2x teleconverter doubles the magnification and halves the working distance on all my supplemental lenses..

Here's the rig assembled with the Vivitar 28-210mm element mounted on the Isco.The two foil reflectors clipped to the threaded rods are adjusted to direct additional flash lighting to the diffuser. Behind the supplemental lens you can see the knurled rubber ring used to "lock" the Isco at infinity. This was scavenged from a junk lens and was the right size to work onto the Isco. It still allows the lens to focus properly, but totally protects against accidentally altering the focus. The 85mm is fitted with a similar band.

Here's an oblique side view showing how the reflector support posts are rigged, plus how the diffuser is mounted on the old tripod mount. The reflectors can be mounted inside or outside the posts. The black clip provides more clearance for my right hand to operate the camera than clothes pins would, as used on the left reflector.

Here's a bracket I've rigged for night photography. It's particularly useful for shooting when the Isco is mounted on my old 200mm Micro-Nikkor. The cross-bar prevents the arms from shifting position and is a convenient place to mount a small positionable flashlight used for focusing. This "focus assist" light is pre-aimed to provide illumination at the point of focus. The black "flap" is my "direct flash" shield, which mounts like a lens cap onto the front of any of my supplemental lenses. It's positioned to block direct light from the camera pop-up flash, or small speedlight, from striking the subject, creating flat lighting and overexposure. All shooting is done in the fully manual mode, usually at f/16 to f/32 (200mm Micro-Nikkor). Flash lighting is redirected around the end of the lens by the reflectors, which can be adjusted to vary light intensity and shadow angle from either side. The shield is made from a Raynox UAC-2000 universal lens adapter sold with several Raynox close-up lenses, but available for purchase separately. The black flap material is cut from a polypropylene plastic notebook divider. The lens mounted on the Iscorama is the objective from a junk Soligor 450mm lens... extremely sharp, and has a great flat field. It gives a field width of 12.5 cm at a working distance of 31 cm.

Here's the night photography set-up all ready to go. 

This nursery web spider and nestful of hatchlings was taken in complete darkness with the rig shown in the previous photo, but with a bowl diffuser mounted on the lens instead of the light shield. The reflectors were positioned to direct additional light onto the subject. I have several bowl diffusers that can mount on a lens just like the direct flash shield, with the Raynox adapter.

This last photo shows a partial inventory of supplemental lenses for using on the Iscorama, most being front cells from junk lenses. Although I have add-on lenses by different manufactures that are from lenses of the same focal length, they produce different "bokeh" and have variability in flatness of field, image color bias, and contrast. 
If you have any questions, need additional info, or whatever... just ask. Thanks!

Hi Julian...
Thanks for the response. After a close family friend passed away years ago I arranged for the sale of his old Arriflex II-C camera, His Iscorama lens was given to me by his niece as a "thank you". I've used it for years, shooting slides, then shelved it when I "went digital". Several years ago I stumbled across the EOSHD website and it rekindled my interest in using it for digital work. It's only fairly recently that I've played around with it with the idea of adapting it for close-up shooting. I'm still not fully up to speed with it when working at close distances. The very shallow DOF at high magnifications is a problem, and working with mongrel supplementary lenses scavenged from junk lenses is "iffy" at times. There's a tremendous amount of variability in image quality when I mount add-on lenses on the Isco, depending upon which primary lens I'm using. Through quite a bit of testing I've created separate sets of supplementary lenses to work with the Isco when mounted on specific primary lenses. A few of my add-on lenses do vignette a bit, which is cropped away preserving the normal decompressed aspect ratio. I haven't run any focus / compression tests at anything closer than about three feet, but feel as you do, that if I leave the Isco at infinity there probably won't be a shift in the amount of "squeeze". 
Here are a few sample images, all taken using an old Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8...  stopped down to f/16 or f/22, with a variety of supplemental lenses. The 85 and the Iscorama both have their focusing ring "locked" at infinity with wide rubber bands, focusing is achieved by moving the camera. Lighting is from either the pop-up flash, or a small speedlight bounced off foil covered cards or shot through a home-made bowl diffuser.

Forget-me-nots, 85mm Nikkor-H, Iscorama, objective from a junk Soligor 450mm reverse mounted on the Isco.
 

Orb weaver leg regeneration, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective. I really like the bokeh here (out of focus evergreen branches).
 

Web repair, 85mm with Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective reversed on the Isco, with a Soligor 90-230mm zoom lens objective reversed on the 450mm.
 

Bee, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscoama, with a Soligor 90-230mm objective reversed on the Isco, and a Panagor 85-205mm objective reversed on the Soligor.
 

Freshly moulted Funnel Weaver, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, with the objective from a Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens reversed on the Isco. 
 

Tiny fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and the objective from the Vivitar 28-210 reversed on the Isco.
 

Baby funnel weaver with a fruit fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and a Raynox MSN-202 close up lens on the Isco. This add-on lens is mounted on an adapter ring that fits the Isco, not in the "snap-on" adapter supplied by Raynox.
The results I've been getting with the Iscorama are very encouraging. It's been great for general photography, but seems to work well up close too. Shooting anamorphic macro images is great... but there are a huge amount of "throw-aways"... more than with using a macro lens without the Iscorama. Shooting extreme close-ups with the Isco is probably "pushing the envelope" a bit, but I'm getting enough decent images to keep me at it. I've been asked why I'm "wasting my time" with the old isco, and been advised that shooting wide angle and cropping might be easier. Having done that years ago... there's no comparison. I just like the look and feel of the anamorphic images better. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Tito, Dan...
Thanks for your comments. Although I only shoot stills, some of the info I've provided might work with film / video. The decision to go with diopters made from junk lens objectives was purely economic, since... being retired,  I don't have much money to put into this activity. The results might be far better for those folks who want to try doing this with more "high end" cameras. I'm using a Nikon D40 and D60, both relatively poor (and limited) high ISO performers, so I'm stuck working at !S0 100 to 400. 
I've found that good junk lenses to scavenge front objectives from are those primes having a focal length of 100mm, or greater, or zooms having a top end of at least 200mm. Some lenses, certain Vivitars in particular, can be a nightmare to dissassemble. Sometimes a dead film camera having a non-interchangeable zoom lens can serve as the donor for a usable strong diopter. The delicate "surgical procedure" being performed below is to remove the lens from a long section of unwanted barrel. This particular optic is the objective from an old Olympus IS-3 DLX film camera that spent a few minutes in the surf at a local beach.
Although the longest focal length is 180mm, it still works well, although the field has quite a bit of curve to it. It's used when I want critical sharpeness in the center and totally blown bokeh at the edge of the field.  Reversed on the Isco it gives a field width of 28mm at a working distance of 6.5cm. I should mention that all my working distance measurements are from the subject to the longest part of the barrel left on the objective. In some cases the lens comes off easily, having a short length of barrel that serves as a built in lens shade when reversed on the Isco. Longer lengths of barrel have to be shortened to provide usable working distance... as with the lens above. Also, testing a junk lens objective and having it "bomb" on a particular primary lens is no reason to give up on it. Some objectives I've tried worked terrible with the Iscorama on my Nikkor-H 85mm, were buried in the back of a cabinet, only to be pressed into service later after being tested with the Isco on the 200mm micro nikkor and found to produce brilliant results. Anyone contemplating buying "junk" lenses to rob objectives from should "buy cheap" and not be put off by internal fungus, haze, or cracked elements... providing the objective itself isn't involved. Steer clear of lenses with bent or badly dinged filter rings that might not be able to accept a macro reverse adapter ring.

Here's the "bowl" diffuser and "direct flash" shield I use. The UAC-2000 runs about $8.00 at big NYC stores.
All the macro shooting I do is hand held... for a reason. Focusing in most cases is "problematic, with most subjects being live creatures going about their business, or inanimate objects being blown around by wind. Working free-hand alows me to constantly shift the camera, following the subject's change in position. I do have a favorite mop handle to steady my hands, or lean on in cases where I might become overbalanced and fall forward. Below is an example of a shot where I leaned on a stick and moved left and right "shopping" for the particular out of focus elements seen behind the spider. A very minor shift in camera position at high magnification can produce a radical change in background appearance.

If anyone tries shooting anamorphic macro video, I'd really like to see it. Thanks!
 
 

Hi Bootsie...
Thanks! Here are some quick photos of two of my shooting rigs, with an explanation for each pic.
The image above shows my set-up for shooting with a high magnification supplemental lens reverse mounted on the iscorama, using the Isco on my Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8. The bracket is made from two strips of hardware store aluminum, drilled to allow mounting with a knob onto the tripod mount of the camera. The angle of the arms is adjustable to allow for different sized foil reflectors to be used at various close working distances. This is a special short-arm bracket for working very close to a subject when there's not much room to move around. The Iscorama has the back end (50mm Nikon mount section removed.  Attached at that point is a 52mm to 49mm step-down ring. Onto that are mounted three empty 52mm filter rings to allow the Isco to be mounted on any of my primary lenses having a 52mm filter thread. This ensures that the protruding back element of the Isco compression module doesn't come into contact with the primary lens glass. This three ring "spacer" then serves as a convenient place to attacht an old tripod mount (upside-down) from a junk telephoto lens, which is used as an anchor point for a bowl flash diffuser made from the dish found in a particular brand of frozen dinner. The plastic diffuser has a moveable black piece that allows for soft directional lighting. This diffuser mounts atop the lens using the silver knob on the repurposed tripod mount. The ring resting between the two lenses is a 72 to 52mm step-down ring. All my supplemental lenses have been set up with 52mm rings to mount on the Isco, which is fitted with the 72-52mm ring. This simplifies mounting any of my add-on lenses onto the Isco. Plus, the Iscorama's filter ring is plastic, and subject to wear and possible cross-threading when I'm working rushed. The metal step-down ring saves the Isco's threads, and results in faster lens swapping. The larger lens on the left is the front cell from a junk Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens... set up for reverse mounting with a macro-reverse adapter ring, and is incredibly sharp, but has a curved field. With the Isco mounted on the 85mm, it gives a "field width" of about 29mm at a lens-to-subject of 6.5 cm. The smaller lens on the right is the large "common objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo microscope, mounted in a cell I've constructed from six empty 52mm filter rings. This mounts on the Isco with the front of the objective toward the subject... the same way it's mounted on the microscope. It's apochromatic, has a huge clear aperture of about 32mm, and gives a field width of about 40mm with some vignetting, at a lens-to-subject distance of a bit over 10 cm. Using a 2x teleconverter doubles the magnification and halves the working distance on all my supplemental lenses..

Here's the rig assembled with the Vivitar 28-210mm element mounted on the Isco.The two foil reflectors clipped to the threaded rods are adjusted to direct additional flash lighting to the diffuser. Behind the supplemental lens you can see the knurled rubber ring used to "lock" the Isco at infinity. This was scavenged from a junk lens and was the right size to work onto the Isco. It still allows the lens to focus properly, but totally protects against accidentally altering the focus. The 85mm is fitted with a similar band.

Here's an oblique side view showing how the reflector support posts are rigged, plus how the diffuser is mounted on the old tripod mount. The reflectors can be mounted inside or outside the posts. The black clip provides more clearance for my right hand to operate the camera than clothes pins would, as used on the left reflector.

Here's a bracket I've rigged for night photography. It's particularly useful for shooting when the Isco is mounted on my old 200mm Micro-Nikkor. The cross-bar prevents the arms from shifting position and is a convenient place to mount a small positionable flashlight used for focusing. This "focus assist" light is pre-aimed to provide illumination at the point of focus. The black "flap" is my "direct flash" shield, which mounts like a lens cap onto the front of any of my supplemental lenses. It's positioned to block direct light from the camera pop-up flash, or small speedlight, from striking the subject, creating flat lighting and overexposure. All shooting is done in the fully manual mode, usually at f/16 to f/32 (200mm Micro-Nikkor). Flash lighting is redirected around the end of the lens by the reflectors, which can be adjusted to vary light intensity and shadow angle from either side. The shield is made from a Raynox UAC-2000 universal lens adapter sold with several Raynox close-up lenses, but available for purchase separately. The black flap material is cut from a polypropylene plastic notebook divider. The lens mounted on the Iscorama is the objective from a junk Soligor 450mm lens... extremely sharp, and has a great flat field. It gives a field width of 12.5 cm at a working distance of 31 cm.

Here's the night photography set-up all ready to go. 

This nursery web spider and nestful of hatchlings was taken in complete darkness with the rig shown in the previous photo, but with a bowl diffuser mounted on the lens instead of the light shield. The reflectors were positioned to direct additional light onto the subject. I have several bowl diffusers that can mount on a lens just like the direct flash shield, with the Raynox adapter.

This last photo shows a partial inventory of supplemental lenses for using on the Iscorama, most being front cells from junk lenses. Although I have add-on lenses by different manufactures that are from lenses of the same focal length, they produce different "bokeh" and have variability in flatness of field, image color bias, and contrast. 
If you have any questions, need additional info, or whatever... just ask. Thanks!

Hi Julian...
Thanks for the response. After a close family friend passed away years ago I arranged for the sale of his old Arriflex II-C camera, His Iscorama lens was given to me by his niece as a "thank you". I've used it for years, shooting slides, then shelved it when I "went digital". Several years ago I stumbled across the EOSHD website and it rekindled my interest in using it for digital work. It's only fairly recently that I've played around with it with the idea of adapting it for close-up shooting. I'm still not fully up to speed with it when working at close distances. The very shallow DOF at high magnifications is a problem, and working with mongrel supplementary lenses scavenged from junk lenses is "iffy" at times. There's a tremendous amount of variability in image quality when I mount add-on lenses on the Isco, depending upon which primary lens I'm using. Through quite a bit of testing I've created separate sets of supplementary lenses to work with the Isco when mounted on specific primary lenses. A few of my add-on lenses do vignette a bit, which is cropped away preserving the normal decompressed aspect ratio. I haven't run any focus / compression tests at anything closer than about three feet, but feel as you do, that if I leave the Isco at infinity there probably won't be a shift in the amount of "squeeze". 
Here are a few sample images, all taken using an old Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8...  stopped down to f/16 or f/22, with a variety of supplemental lenses. The 85 and the Iscorama both have their focusing ring "locked" at infinity with wide rubber bands, focusing is achieved by moving the camera. Lighting is from either the pop-up flash, or a small speedlight bounced off foil covered cards or shot through a home-made bowl diffuser.

Forget-me-nots, 85mm Nikkor-H, Iscorama, objective from a junk Soligor 450mm reverse mounted on the Isco.
 

Orb weaver leg regeneration, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective. I really like the bokeh here (out of focus evergreen branches).
 

Web repair, 85mm with Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective reversed on the Isco, with a Soligor 90-230mm zoom lens objective reversed on the 450mm.
 

Bee, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscoama, with a Soligor 90-230mm objective reversed on the Isco, and a Panagor 85-205mm objective reversed on the Soligor.
 

Freshly moulted Funnel Weaver, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, with the objective from a Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens reversed on the Isco. 
 

Tiny fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and the objective from the Vivitar 28-210 reversed on the Isco.
 

Baby funnel weaver with a fruit fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and a Raynox MSN-202 close up lens on the Isco. This add-on lens is mounted on an adapter ring that fits the Isco, not in the "snap-on" adapter supplied by Raynox.
The results I've been getting with the Iscorama are very encouraging. It's been great for general photography, but seems to work well up close too. Shooting anamorphic macro images is great... but there are a huge amount of "throw-aways"... more than with using a macro lens without the Iscorama. Shooting extreme close-ups with the Isco is probably "pushing the envelope" a bit, but I'm getting enough decent images to keep me at it. I've been asked why I'm "wasting my time" with the old isco, and been advised that shooting wide angle and cropping might be easier. Having done that years ago... there's no comparison. I just like the look and feel of the anamorphic images better. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Bootsie...
Thanks! Here are some quick photos of two of my shooting rigs, with an explanation for each pic.
The image above shows my set-up for shooting with a high magnification supplemental lens reverse mounted on the iscorama, using the Isco on my Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8. The bracket is made from two strips of hardware store aluminum, drilled to allow mounting with a knob onto the tripod mount of the camera. The angle of the arms is adjustable to allow for different sized foil reflectors to be used at various close working distances. This is a special short-arm bracket for working very close to a subject when there's not much room to move around. The Iscorama has the back end (50mm Nikon mount section removed.  Attached at that point is a 52mm to 49mm step-down ring. Onto that are mounted three empty 52mm filter rings to allow the Isco to be mounted on any of my primary lenses having a 52mm filter thread. This ensures that the protruding back element of the Isco compression module doesn't come into contact with the primary lens glass. This three ring "spacer" then serves as a convenient place to attacht an old tripod mount (upside-down) from a junk telephoto lens, which is used as an anchor point for a bowl flash diffuser made from the dish found in a particular brand of frozen dinner. The plastic diffuser has a moveable black piece that allows for soft directional lighting. This diffuser mounts atop the lens using the silver knob on the repurposed tripod mount. The ring resting between the two lenses is a 72 to 52mm step-down ring. All my supplemental lenses have been set up with 52mm rings to mount on the Isco, which is fitted with the 72-52mm ring. This simplifies mounting any of my add-on lenses onto the Isco. Plus, the Iscorama's filter ring is plastic, and subject to wear and possible cross-threading when I'm working rushed. The metal step-down ring saves the Isco's threads, and results in faster lens swapping. The larger lens on the left is the front cell from a junk Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens... set up for reverse mounting with a macro-reverse adapter ring, and is incredibly sharp, but has a curved field. With the Isco mounted on the 85mm, it gives a "field width" of about 29mm at a lens-to-subject of 6.5 cm. The smaller lens on the right is the large "common objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo microscope, mounted in a cell I've constructed from six empty 52mm filter rings. This mounts on the Isco with the front of the objective toward the subject... the same way it's mounted on the microscope. It's apochromatic, has a huge clear aperture of about 32mm, and gives a field width of about 40mm with some vignetting, at a lens-to-subject distance of a bit over 10 cm. Using a 2x teleconverter doubles the magnification and halves the working distance on all my supplemental lenses..

Here's the rig assembled with the Vivitar 28-210mm element mounted on the Isco.The two foil reflectors clipped to the threaded rods are adjusted to direct additional flash lighting to the diffuser. Behind the supplemental lens you can see the knurled rubber ring used to "lock" the Isco at infinity. This was scavenged from a junk lens and was the right size to work onto the Isco. It still allows the lens to focus properly, but totally protects against accidentally altering the focus. The 85mm is fitted with a similar band.

Here's an oblique side view showing how the reflector support posts are rigged, plus how the diffuser is mounted on the old tripod mount. The reflectors can be mounted inside or outside the posts. The black clip provides more clearance for my right hand to operate the camera than clothes pins would, as used on the left reflector.

Here's a bracket I've rigged for night photography. It's particularly useful for shooting when the Isco is mounted on my old 200mm Micro-Nikkor. The cross-bar prevents the arms from shifting position and is a convenient place to mount a small positionable flashlight used for focusing. This "focus assist" light is pre-aimed to provide illumination at the point of focus. The black "flap" is my "direct flash" shield, which mounts like a lens cap onto the front of any of my supplemental lenses. It's positioned to block direct light from the camera pop-up flash, or small speedlight, from striking the subject, creating flat lighting and overexposure. All shooting is done in the fully manual mode, usually at f/16 to f/32 (200mm Micro-Nikkor). Flash lighting is redirected around the end of the lens by the reflectors, which can be adjusted to vary light intensity and shadow angle from either side. The shield is made from a Raynox UAC-2000 universal lens adapter sold with several Raynox close-up lenses, but available for purchase separately. The black flap material is cut from a polypropylene plastic notebook divider. The lens mounted on the Iscorama is the objective from a junk Soligor 450mm lens... extremely sharp, and has a great flat field. It gives a field width of 12.5 cm at a working distance of 31 cm.

Here's the night photography set-up all ready to go. 

This nursery web spider and nestful of hatchlings was taken in complete darkness with the rig shown in the previous photo, but with a bowl diffuser mounted on the lens instead of the light shield. The reflectors were positioned to direct additional light onto the subject. I have several bowl diffusers that can mount on a lens just like the direct flash shield, with the Raynox adapter.

This last photo shows a partial inventory of supplemental lenses for using on the Iscorama, most being front cells from junk lenses. Although I have add-on lenses by different manufactures that are from lenses of the same focal length, they produce different "bokeh" and have variability in flatness of field, image color bias, and contrast. 
If you have any questions, need additional info, or whatever... just ask. Thanks!

Hi Bootsie...
Thanks! Here are some quick photos of two of my shooting rigs, with an explanation for each pic.
The image above shows my set-up for shooting with a high magnification supplemental lens reverse mounted on the iscorama, using the Isco on my Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8. The bracket is made from two strips of hardware store aluminum, drilled to allow mounting with a knob onto the tripod mount of the camera. The angle of the arms is adjustable to allow for different sized foil reflectors to be used at various close working distances. This is a special short-arm bracket for working very close to a subject when there's not much room to move around. The Iscorama has the back end (50mm Nikon mount section removed.  Attached at that point is a 52mm to 49mm step-down ring. Onto that are mounted three empty 52mm filter rings to allow the Isco to be mounted on any of my primary lenses having a 52mm filter thread. This ensures that the protruding back element of the Isco compression module doesn't come into contact with the primary lens glass. This three ring "spacer" then serves as a convenient place to attacht an old tripod mount (upside-down) from a junk telephoto lens, which is used as an anchor point for a bowl flash diffuser made from the dish found in a particular brand of frozen dinner. The plastic diffuser has a moveable black piece that allows for soft directional lighting. This diffuser mounts atop the lens using the silver knob on the repurposed tripod mount. The ring resting between the two lenses is a 72 to 52mm step-down ring. All my supplemental lenses have been set up with 52mm rings to mount on the Isco, which is fitted with the 72-52mm ring. This simplifies mounting any of my add-on lenses onto the Isco. Plus, the Iscorama's filter ring is plastic, and subject to wear and possible cross-threading when I'm working rushed. The metal step-down ring saves the Isco's threads, and results in faster lens swapping. The larger lens on the left is the front cell from a junk Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens... set up for reverse mounting with a macro-reverse adapter ring, and is incredibly sharp, but has a curved field. With the Isco mounted on the 85mm, it gives a "field width" of about 29mm at a lens-to-subject of 6.5 cm. The smaller lens on the right is the large "common objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo microscope, mounted in a cell I've constructed from six empty 52mm filter rings. This mounts on the Isco with the front of the objective toward the subject... the same way it's mounted on the microscope. It's apochromatic, has a huge clear aperture of about 32mm, and gives a field width of about 40mm with some vignetting, at a lens-to-subject distance of a bit over 10 cm. Using a 2x teleconverter doubles the magnification and halves the working distance on all my supplemental lenses..

Here's the rig assembled with the Vivitar 28-210mm element mounted on the Isco.The two foil reflectors clipped to the threaded rods are adjusted to direct additional flash lighting to the diffuser. Behind the supplemental lens you can see the knurled rubber ring used to "lock" the Isco at infinity. This was scavenged from a junk lens and was the right size to work onto the Isco. It still allows the lens to focus properly, but totally protects against accidentally altering the focus. The 85mm is fitted with a similar band.

Here's an oblique side view showing how the reflector support posts are rigged, plus how the diffuser is mounted on the old tripod mount. The reflectors can be mounted inside or outside the posts. The black clip provides more clearance for my right hand to operate the camera than clothes pins would, as used on the left reflector.

Here's a bracket I've rigged for night photography. It's particularly useful for shooting when the Isco is mounted on my old 200mm Micro-Nikkor. The cross-bar prevents the arms from shifting position and is a convenient place to mount a small positionable flashlight used for focusing. This "focus assist" light is pre-aimed to provide illumination at the point of focus. The black "flap" is my "direct flash" shield, which mounts like a lens cap onto the front of any of my supplemental lenses. It's positioned to block direct light from the camera pop-up flash, or small speedlight, from striking the subject, creating flat lighting and overexposure. All shooting is done in the fully manual mode, usually at f/16 to f/32 (200mm Micro-Nikkor). Flash lighting is redirected around the end of the lens by the reflectors, which can be adjusted to vary light intensity and shadow angle from either side. The shield is made from a Raynox UAC-2000 universal lens adapter sold with several Raynox close-up lenses, but available for purchase separately. The black flap material is cut from a polypropylene plastic notebook divider. The lens mounted on the Iscorama is the objective from a junk Soligor 450mm lens... extremely sharp, and has a great flat field. It gives a field width of 12.5 cm at a working distance of 31 cm.

Here's the night photography set-up all ready to go. 

This nursery web spider and nestful of hatchlings was taken in complete darkness with the rig shown in the previous photo, but with a bowl diffuser mounted on the lens instead of the light shield. The reflectors were positioned to direct additional light onto the subject. I have several bowl diffusers that can mount on a lens just like the direct flash shield, with the Raynox adapter.

This last photo shows a partial inventory of supplemental lenses for using on the Iscorama, most being front cells from junk lenses. Although I have add-on lenses by different manufactures that are from lenses of the same focal length, they produce different "bokeh" and have variability in flatness of field, image color bias, and contrast. 
If you have any questions, need additional info, or whatever... just ask. Thanks!

Hi Julian...
Thanks for the response. After a close family friend passed away years ago I arranged for the sale of his old Arriflex II-C camera, His Iscorama lens was given to me by his niece as a "thank you". I've used it for years, shooting slides, then shelved it when I "went digital". Several years ago I stumbled across the EOSHD website and it rekindled my interest in using it for digital work. It's only fairly recently that I've played around with it with the idea of adapting it for close-up shooting. I'm still not fully up to speed with it when working at close distances. The very shallow DOF at high magnifications is a problem, and working with mongrel supplementary lenses scavenged from junk lenses is "iffy" at times. There's a tremendous amount of variability in image quality when I mount add-on lenses on the Isco, depending upon which primary lens I'm using. Through quite a bit of testing I've created separate sets of supplementary lenses to work with the Isco when mounted on specific primary lenses. A few of my add-on lenses do vignette a bit, which is cropped away preserving the normal decompressed aspect ratio. I haven't run any focus / compression tests at anything closer than about three feet, but feel as you do, that if I leave the Isco at infinity there probably won't be a shift in the amount of "squeeze". 
Here are a few sample images, all taken using an old Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8...  stopped down to f/16 or f/22, with a variety of supplemental lenses. The 85 and the Iscorama both have their focusing ring "locked" at infinity with wide rubber bands, focusing is achieved by moving the camera. Lighting is from either the pop-up flash, or a small speedlight bounced off foil covered cards or shot through a home-made bowl diffuser.

Forget-me-nots, 85mm Nikkor-H, Iscorama, objective from a junk Soligor 450mm reverse mounted on the Isco.
 

Orb weaver leg regeneration, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective. I really like the bokeh here (out of focus evergreen branches).
 

Web repair, 85mm with Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective reversed on the Isco, with a Soligor 90-230mm zoom lens objective reversed on the 450mm.
 

Bee, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscoama, with a Soligor 90-230mm objective reversed on the Isco, and a Panagor 85-205mm objective reversed on the Soligor.
 

Freshly moulted Funnel Weaver, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, with the objective from a Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens reversed on the Isco. 
 

Tiny fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and the objective from the Vivitar 28-210 reversed on the Isco.
 

Baby funnel weaver with a fruit fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and a Raynox MSN-202 close up lens on the Isco. This add-on lens is mounted on an adapter ring that fits the Isco, not in the "snap-on" adapter supplied by Raynox.
The results I've been getting with the Iscorama are very encouraging. It's been great for general photography, but seems to work well up close too. Shooting anamorphic macro images is great... but there are a huge amount of "throw-aways"... more than with using a macro lens without the Iscorama. Shooting extreme close-ups with the Isco is probably "pushing the envelope" a bit, but I'm getting enough decent images to keep me at it. I've been asked why I'm "wasting my time" with the old isco, and been advised that shooting wide angle and cropping might be easier. Having done that years ago... there's no comparison. I just like the look and feel of the anamorphic images better. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Download this and print it out on white paper. Tape the sheet on all 4 sides flat to a wall or door. Make sure the sheet & tripod are leveled (I used a big square ruler if that helps).  Line up the bottom of your view finder to the black boxes on the sheet and adjust until the lens looks about leveled. 
 
When testing my recent build I discovered not only was my glass misaligned by 2° but the front element wasn't flush with the step. In so many words I could see that my image was very soft & the focus was slightly shifted. So I took it apart and clean, greased, recalibrated everything.  Now the image is razor sharp and clean.  Need any help I can walk you thru it.

Hi Bootsie...
Thanks! Here are some quick photos of two of my shooting rigs, with an explanation for each pic.
The image above shows my set-up for shooting with a high magnification supplemental lens reverse mounted on the iscorama, using the Isco on my Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8. The bracket is made from two strips of hardware store aluminum, drilled to allow mounting with a knob onto the tripod mount of the camera. The angle of the arms is adjustable to allow for different sized foil reflectors to be used at various close working distances. This is a special short-arm bracket for working very close to a subject when there's not much room to move around. The Iscorama has the back end (50mm Nikon mount section removed.  Attached at that point is a 52mm to 49mm step-down ring. Onto that are mounted three empty 52mm filter rings to allow the Isco to be mounted on any of my primary lenses having a 52mm filter thread. This ensures that the protruding back element of the Isco compression module doesn't come into contact with the primary lens glass. This three ring "spacer" then serves as a convenient place to attacht an old tripod mount (upside-down) from a junk telephoto lens, which is used as an anchor point for a bowl flash diffuser made from the dish found in a particular brand of frozen dinner. The plastic diffuser has a moveable black piece that allows for soft directional lighting. This diffuser mounts atop the lens using the silver knob on the repurposed tripod mount. The ring resting between the two lenses is a 72 to 52mm step-down ring. All my supplemental lenses have been set up with 52mm rings to mount on the Isco, which is fitted with the 72-52mm ring. This simplifies mounting any of my add-on lenses onto the Isco. Plus, the Iscorama's filter ring is plastic, and subject to wear and possible cross-threading when I'm working rushed. The metal step-down ring saves the Isco's threads, and results in faster lens swapping. The larger lens on the left is the front cell from a junk Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens... set up for reverse mounting with a macro-reverse adapter ring, and is incredibly sharp, but has a curved field. With the Isco mounted on the 85mm, it gives a "field width" of about 29mm at a lens-to-subject of 6.5 cm. The smaller lens on the right is the large "common objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo microscope, mounted in a cell I've constructed from six empty 52mm filter rings. This mounts on the Isco with the front of the objective toward the subject... the same way it's mounted on the microscope. It's apochromatic, has a huge clear aperture of about 32mm, and gives a field width of about 40mm with some vignetting, at a lens-to-subject distance of a bit over 10 cm. Using a 2x teleconverter doubles the magnification and halves the working distance on all my supplemental lenses..

Here's the rig assembled with the Vivitar 28-210mm element mounted on the Isco.The two foil reflectors clipped to the threaded rods are adjusted to direct additional flash lighting to the diffuser. Behind the supplemental lens you can see the knurled rubber ring used to "lock" the Isco at infinity. This was scavenged from a junk lens and was the right size to work onto the Isco. It still allows the lens to focus properly, but totally protects against accidentally altering the focus. The 85mm is fitted with a similar band.

Here's an oblique side view showing how the reflector support posts are rigged, plus how the diffuser is mounted on the old tripod mount. The reflectors can be mounted inside or outside the posts. The black clip provides more clearance for my right hand to operate the camera than clothes pins would, as used on the left reflector.

Here's a bracket I've rigged for night photography. It's particularly useful for shooting when the Isco is mounted on my old 200mm Micro-Nikkor. The cross-bar prevents the arms from shifting position and is a convenient place to mount a small positionable flashlight used for focusing. This "focus assist" light is pre-aimed to provide illumination at the point of focus. The black "flap" is my "direct flash" shield, which mounts like a lens cap onto the front of any of my supplemental lenses. It's positioned to block direct light from the camera pop-up flash, or small speedlight, from striking the subject, creating flat lighting and overexposure. All shooting is done in the fully manual mode, usually at f/16 to f/32 (200mm Micro-Nikkor). Flash lighting is redirected around the end of the lens by the reflectors, which can be adjusted to vary light intensity and shadow angle from either side. The shield is made from a Raynox UAC-2000 universal lens adapter sold with several Raynox close-up lenses, but available for purchase separately. The black flap material is cut from a polypropylene plastic notebook divider. The lens mounted on the Iscorama is the objective from a junk Soligor 450mm lens... extremely sharp, and has a great flat field. It gives a field width of 12.5 cm at a working distance of 31 cm.

Here's the night photography set-up all ready to go. 

This nursery web spider and nestful of hatchlings was taken in complete darkness with the rig shown in the previous photo, but with a bowl diffuser mounted on the lens instead of the light shield. The reflectors were positioned to direct additional light onto the subject. I have several bowl diffusers that can mount on a lens just like the direct flash shield, with the Raynox adapter.

This last photo shows a partial inventory of supplemental lenses for using on the Iscorama, most being front cells from junk lenses. Although I have add-on lenses by different manufactures that are from lenses of the same focal length, they produce different "bokeh" and have variability in flatness of field, image color bias, and contrast. 
If you have any questions, need additional info, or whatever... just ask. Thanks!

Hi Julian...
Thanks for the response. After a close family friend passed away years ago I arranged for the sale of his old Arriflex II-C camera, His Iscorama lens was given to me by his niece as a "thank you". I've used it for years, shooting slides, then shelved it when I "went digital". Several years ago I stumbled across the EOSHD website and it rekindled my interest in using it for digital work. It's only fairly recently that I've played around with it with the idea of adapting it for close-up shooting. I'm still not fully up to speed with it when working at close distances. The very shallow DOF at high magnifications is a problem, and working with mongrel supplementary lenses scavenged from junk lenses is "iffy" at times. There's a tremendous amount of variability in image quality when I mount add-on lenses on the Isco, depending upon which primary lens I'm using. Through quite a bit of testing I've created separate sets of supplementary lenses to work with the Isco when mounted on specific primary lenses. A few of my add-on lenses do vignette a bit, which is cropped away preserving the normal decompressed aspect ratio. I haven't run any focus / compression tests at anything closer than about three feet, but feel as you do, that if I leave the Isco at infinity there probably won't be a shift in the amount of "squeeze". 
Here are a few sample images, all taken using an old Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8...  stopped down to f/16 or f/22, with a variety of supplemental lenses. The 85 and the Iscorama both have their focusing ring "locked" at infinity with wide rubber bands, focusing is achieved by moving the camera. Lighting is from either the pop-up flash, or a small speedlight bounced off foil covered cards or shot through a home-made bowl diffuser.

Forget-me-nots, 85mm Nikkor-H, Iscorama, objective from a junk Soligor 450mm reverse mounted on the Isco.
 

Orb weaver leg regeneration, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective. I really like the bokeh here (out of focus evergreen branches).
 

Web repair, 85mm with Iscorama, Soligor 450mm objective reversed on the Isco, with a Soligor 90-230mm zoom lens objective reversed on the 450mm.
 

Bee, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscoama, with a Soligor 90-230mm objective reversed on the Isco, and a Panagor 85-205mm objective reversed on the Soligor.
 

Freshly moulted Funnel Weaver, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, with the objective from a Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens reversed on the Isco. 
 

Tiny fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and the objective from the Vivitar 28-210 reversed on the Isco.
 

Baby funnel weaver with a fruit fly, Nikkor-H 85mm, Iscorama, and a Raynox MSN-202 close up lens on the Isco. This add-on lens is mounted on an adapter ring that fits the Isco, not in the "snap-on" adapter supplied by Raynox.
The results I've been getting with the Iscorama are very encouraging. It's been great for general photography, but seems to work well up close too. Shooting anamorphic macro images is great... but there are a huge amount of "throw-aways"... more than with using a macro lens without the Iscorama. Shooting extreme close-ups with the Isco is probably "pushing the envelope" a bit, but I'm getting enough decent images to keep me at it. I've been asked why I'm "wasting my time" with the old isco, and been advised that shooting wide angle and cropping might be easier. Having done that years ago... there's no comparison. I just like the look and feel of the anamorphic images better. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Bootsie...
Thanks! Here are some quick photos of two of my shooting rigs, with an explanation for each pic.
The image above shows my set-up for shooting with a high magnification supplemental lens reverse mounted on the iscorama, using the Isco on my Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8. The bracket is made from two strips of hardware store aluminum, drilled to allow mounting with a knob onto the tripod mount of the camera. The angle of the arms is adjustable to allow for different sized foil reflectors to be used at various close working distances. This is a special short-arm bracket for working very close to a subject when there's not much room to move around. The Iscorama has the back end (50mm Nikon mount section removed.  Attached at that point is a 52mm to 49mm step-down ring. Onto that are mounted three empty 52mm filter rings to allow the Isco to be mounted on any of my primary lenses having a 52mm filter thread. This ensures that the protruding back element of the Isco compression module doesn't come into contact with the primary lens glass. This three ring "spacer" then serves as a convenient place to attacht an old tripod mount (upside-down) from a junk telephoto lens, which is used as an anchor point for a bowl flash diffuser made from the dish found in a particular brand of frozen dinner. The plastic diffuser has a moveable black piece that allows for soft directional lighting. This diffuser mounts atop the lens using the silver knob on the repurposed tripod mount. The ring resting between the two lenses is a 72 to 52mm step-down ring. All my supplemental lenses have been set up with 52mm rings to mount on the Isco, which is fitted with the 72-52mm ring. This simplifies mounting any of my add-on lenses onto the Isco. Plus, the Iscorama's filter ring is plastic, and subject to wear and possible cross-threading when I'm working rushed. The metal step-down ring saves the Isco's threads, and results in faster lens swapping. The larger lens on the left is the front cell from a junk Vivitar 28-210mm zoom lens... set up for reverse mounting with a macro-reverse adapter ring, and is incredibly sharp, but has a curved field. With the Isco mounted on the 85mm, it gives a "field width" of about 29mm at a lens-to-subject of 6.5 cm. The smaller lens on the right is the large "common objective" from an American Optical "Cycloptic" stereo microscope, mounted in a cell I've constructed from six empty 52mm filter rings. This mounts on the Isco with the front of the objective toward the subject... the same way it's mounted on the microscope. It's apochromatic, has a huge clear aperture of about 32mm, and gives a field width of about 40mm with some vignetting, at a lens-to-subject distance of a bit over 10 cm. Using a 2x teleconverter doubles the magnification and halves the working distance on all my supplemental lenses..

Here's the rig assembled with the Vivitar 28-210mm element mounted on the Isco.The two foil reflectors clipped to the threaded rods are adjusted to direct additional flash lighting to the diffuser. Behind the supplemental lens you can see the knurled rubber ring used to "lock" the Isco at infinity. This was scavenged from a junk lens and was the right size to work onto the Isco. It still allows the lens to focus properly, but totally protects against accidentally altering the focus. The 85mm is fitted with a similar band.

Here's an oblique side view showing how the reflector support posts are rigged, plus how the diffuser is mounted on the old tripod mount. The reflectors can be mounted inside or outside the posts. The black clip provides more clearance for my right hand to operate the camera than clothes pins would, as used on the left reflector.

Here's a bracket I've rigged for night photography. It's particularly useful for shooting when the Isco is mounted on my old 200mm Micro-Nikkor. The cross-bar prevents the arms from shifting position and is a convenient place to mount a small positionable flashlight used for focusing. This "focus assist" light is pre-aimed to provide illumination at the point of focus. The black "flap" is my "direct flash" shield, which mounts like a lens cap onto the front of any of my supplemental lenses. It's positioned to block direct light from the camera pop-up flash, or small speedlight, from striking the subject, creating flat lighting and overexposure. All shooting is done in the fully manual mode, usually at f/16 to f/32 (200mm Micro-Nikkor). Flash lighting is redirected around the end of the lens by the reflectors, which can be adjusted to vary light intensity and shadow angle from either side. The shield is made from a Raynox UAC-2000 universal lens adapter sold with several Raynox close-up lenses, but available for purchase separately. The black flap material is cut from a polypropylene plastic notebook divider. The lens mounted on the Iscorama is the objective from a junk Soligor 450mm lens... extremely sharp, and has a great flat field. It gives a field width of 12.5 cm at a working distance of 31 cm.

Here's the night photography set-up all ready to go. 

This nursery web spider and nestful of hatchlings was taken in complete darkness with the rig shown in the previous photo, but with a bowl diffuser mounted on the lens instead of the light shield. The reflectors were positioned to direct additional light onto the subject. I have several bowl diffusers that can mount on a lens just like the direct flash shield, with the Raynox adapter.

This last photo shows a partial inventory of supplemental lenses for using on the Iscorama, most being front cells from junk lenses. Although I have add-on lenses by different manufactures that are from lenses of the same focal length, they produce different "bokeh" and have variability in flatness of field, image color bias, and contrast. 
If you have any questions, need additional info, or whatever... just ask. Thanks!