As regular readers of my essays will know, when I’m asked to evaluate gear, I like to create real world scenarios that I call DCS Road Tests. These Road Tests give me the opportunity to really judge performance and show the results in just the way I would be using the tools in my work. I was already a user and fan of Infinity Photo-Optical Micro/Macro lenses, so when they asked me to take a look at a new kit they had put together to be easier to use and with greater range of focus and magnification, I set about devising a series of shots that would really put these lenses to the test.
I invited my good friend and regular collaborator, Cinematographer Cameron Cannon, to join me. To my good fortune, he is always happy to try out new gear, stay current with the latest technology, and share his professional evaluations. I strung together some of our shots, followed, for comparison, by another short sequence done at 940fps on a Phantom camera by another frequent collaborator, Cinematographer Enrique Del Rio, with an earlier Infinity model TS-160. Please view these shots before reading on:
The MikroMak Prime Probe Lens set consists of 40mm, 50mm, 70mm, 90mm and 125mm prime lenses along with a 25mm front field expander for the 40mm lens. Additionally, the MikroMak/RO 120mm prime probe lens and its 55mm front field expander rounds out the set.
In a real shoot there is never enough time, and so to make these evaluations as realistic as possible, I decided to place some limits on the time allotted. Cameron and I spent only about two and half hours doing three interior shots, and the following day, I ventured into our backyard with DCS Executive Director and would-be reptile wrangler, Charlene Mathers, along with our pet gecko, Herbie.
Herbie is a veteran performer, having not only starred in a myriad of previous camera tests, but had gotten his start in front of the camera some 30 years ago in a Monkees reunion TV movie on which I served as DP. After three decades in front of the camera, Herbie is still a temperamental talent, which, as I will explain, actually served us well for this test. I also managed to get a quick shot of a hummingbird which was even more flighty, (pun intended). I didn’t want to hang around too long outdoors that day because it was really hot, but it worked out because the flower shot is from a dragon fruit bloom that only opens up like that for a short time on a very sunny day. At any rate, I don’t think we were shooting for even an hour on all of our exterior shots, which helps to make the point that they are now much faster and easier to use.
We decided to use my Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K Camera. It is one of the original S35 sensor models, as opposed to the newer full-frame version. Although this camera is capable of 12K, we didn’t require any more than 4K for these tests, so we captured in 4K BRAW. This resolution flexibility is one of the features I really like about this particular camera, and although it is not the very latest model, it still serves me quite well.
This particular body has a PL mount, but the Infinity lenses are fairly agnostic about mounts; the system’s Universal T2 Mount (M42 x 0.75) easily adapts to a variety of professional standards including the Sony E-mount, L-mount, EF-mount, and more. Only one specified adapter is included in each kit, but they are relatively inexpensive and with so many cameras and mounts in the field today, it is probably a good investment to have a few on hand to give the kit maximum versatility. I should note that these lenses can also cover a variety of sensor sizes from Super-35/APS-C to Full-Frame, maintaining a flat field over most formats and mounts.
In contrast to this relatively modern camera, for our first set up, I picked a few subjects as props from my collection of vintage 8mm and 16mm film cameras. Some of the cameras in my collection date back to the 1940s and are still operational, and that is a stark contrast from today’s digital cameras which are usually considered long in the tooth when they are just a few years old. To my way of thinking, if they still do the job as my 12K URSA keeps doing, I have no reason to put them out to pasture.
It is not so hard to hold everything in focus in a locked off shot, so I always try to add a little movement to highlight the abilities of these lenses with a slider, jib-arm, or motion control rig. However, none of those were handy for this little shoot, so I grabbed an old record player to use as a make-shift lazy-susan turntable and we also did a little panning to add some movement to the shot.
Having previously shot with Infinity lenses, Cameron and I had a bit of an advantage, but we were also greatly assisted by some basic operational instructions and charts they call a “Roadmap” which are now included in the kits. Since the MikroMak lenses don’t work like any average lenses, the process for setting up a shot is also different. It seems counterintuitive at first, but as the Roadmap instructions indicate, instead of focusing on your subject, you first find something in the far distance and set focus to infinity. You then lock a small set screw that seems to function like a flange adjustment on a modern zoom lens. This sets the lens into a deep focus mode, after which everything from infinity to within inches from the front element is in focus.
I like to refer to these Infinity kits as optical erector sets, because you can build out the many included pieces to serve innumerable types of unique shots. However, with so many pieces comes a lot of complexity which is another reason I found the Roadmap so instructive. With the vintage cameras and water shots we were hoping to demonstrate the deep focus abilities of these lenses, creating a good bit of distance between the furthest object and the closest, holding focus, without racking, as we moved through the shot. This would normally be quite a challenge at that kind of magnification, but I think we were successful in making our point, which is again, that these lenses hold a hell of a lot of depth-of-field, especially for macro lenses.
This deep focus at high magnification was also really helpful for the exterior shots; I was jumping between the 40mm and 90mm. The 90mm allowed me to back off and not be so close to the subject, yet hold a very high magnification. The hummingbird would not have visited the feeder if I had tried to set up as close as this lens seems to suggest. The 40mm made for a little wider field of view even with the lens just a few inches from the subject. This was helpful when Herbie tried to dart off out of frame and ended up giving us a great view of his full scaly body as he slithered away. Meanwhile, the inside of the flower holds focus deep into the bloom even though it was necessary to be only a few inches from the tip of the petals to get the right angle.
Having a choice of focal lengths and the guide to help you make the right choices makes set up faster and easier. Let me share an anecdote as a point of comparison between the new kit and the luxury watch commercial test I helped Enrique shoot using an earlier version of the lenses. At that kind of magnification, it is not easy to even find your subject in the frame. When we first started setting up the watch shot we couldn’t figure out the strange looking squiggly image on the monitor until we realized we were well inside the face of the timepiece and just looking at part of a letter in the fine print of the watch’s name.
So, setting up Enrique’s watch demo took a little more effort, but the capabilities of the Infinity lenses still proved really valuable. He was able to maintain extreme magnification, filling the frame with the watch face, and hold a deep focus as the subject swung back and forth spinning through frame.
Overall, with the well organized kit and Roadmap instructions, it is much faster to get started using Infinity MikroMak Prime probe lenses. However, I’m not one to sing the praises of any type of gear without giving at least mention of any challenges. In this case, although the lenses are faster to set up, they are still slow in the sense of light transmission. They don’t have any t-stop markings, but if they did, it would be closed beyond a T22. Now, that’s a lot of necessary illumination, yet not something that can’t be handled relatively easily these days.
Modern digital cinema cameras keep getting more sensitive and LED lighting becomes more efficient with greater output. We only used a Litepanels Astra running on a camera battery as our key-light for our interiors, and Enrique was able to shoot 940fps with only a single 1,200 watt LED that could plug into a household circuit. Another minor thing, hardly worth mentioning, is that some of these lenses vertically flip the image. For me, this has never been an issue since I operate off an 8” monitor that can flip the image back to the desired orientation with a quick switch. Infinity also makes what they call the “Flipper,” an optical accessory designed to invert the image as needed. It is not included in this kit, but I wouldn’t use it if it were, not wanting to ever put more glass in front of the sensor than necessary.
We didn’t have time to test each of the innumerable combinations possible with this kit, but suffice it to say that if you are aiming to shoot in the micro/macro range, this kit will have you covered. The Infinity MikroMak Prime Probe lens kit is well organized with clear roadmap instructions that make it fast and easy to get going and explore the world of micro/macro image making.
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