One of my favorite types of photography is taking images from unique perspectives, revealing worlds unseen — or more accurately, unnoticed; images that reveal something you wouldn’t normally see, or don’t normally choose to look for. It could be shots taken low to the ground, or from the top of a ladder, but often it’s very simply shots taken up close.
Some modern lenses have close-up capabilities built-in, and two of my favorite personal examples include my SMC Pentax-A Zoom 70-210mm f/4 lens, for my Pentax Super Program SLR, as well as the outstanding Kilfitt-Makro-Kilar D 40mm f/2.8, for my Ihagee Exakta cameras. The former offers a nice focal length range with its zoom, and it has a so-called “macro” mode as well (although I don’t think it meets the technical definition of that). The latter focuses continually from infinity to just a couple of centimeters from the front of the lens, thanks to a unique helicoid design. Regardless, they’re fun lenses for close-up work, and it’s nice to have that versatility within a single lens.
With many cameras, especially with vintage ones, close-up capabilities were more commonly brought to the table through the use of auxiliary lenses, which were designed to attach to the front of the camera’s main lens, much as a contrast or color correction filter might be handled.
These auxiliary lenses have been around a long time, and in truth, technically speaking, their purpose is to change the focal length of the lens. While the nature of what they do hasn’t changed, the cameras largely have, and we tend to think of these auxiliary lenses differently today.
Some History and Context
If we roll back the clock back to 1926, we can use some materials from Carl Zeiss Jena to set the stage here:
Zeiss has used the Proxar trademark for auxiliary lenses for a very long time; the close-up lenses for my Hasselblad 503CW (circa 2000) are in fact Carl Zeiss Proxars (which themselves were circa mid-1980s).
But while we think of Proxars as close-up lenses today, in an era when cameras by nature had bellows — and the distance between front standards (or lens plane) and rear standards (or film plane) was not fixed (as on modern rigid-body cameras) — their change on the main lens’ focal length and what it gave you was the primary point.
Proxar lenses complemented the company’s Distar lenses. The two sibling product lines essentially covered both ends of the focal length scale, so to speak; the Distar auxiliary lenses increased the focal length of the camera’s main lens, while the Proxar auxiliary lenses decreased the focal length. The same brochure demonstrated the effect with this image:
As I mentioned above, in the 1920s, if you were shooting a camera, it was very likely a view camera with a bellows, or perhaps even a folding camera of some type with bellows. If you’ve never shot with such a camera, understand that the fundamental physics are no different. But cameras with adjustable extension bellows (most common today only on large format cameras) provide an incredible amount of focusing flexibility simply because the relationship between the plane of the lens and the plane of the film can be varied.
Depending on the length of the bellows and the design of the camera, any main lens could be a “close-up” lens because the bellows extended far enough to get the image in-focus regardless. Thus, the auxiliary lens’ purpose was more the focal length change, or said another way, what portion of the visible scene was actually captured by the camera.
Whether a Proxar or any other close-up auxiliary lens, what these lenses do today is no different than they did 100 years ago: They reduce the focal length of the lens that you attach them to. But the primary use case, however, is perhaps a bit different than it was back then.
When you attach one of these Proxars to the end of your lens on a bellows camera, the infinity point is shifted, in the same way as it would if you’d attached a native wide angle lens to the camera; you would have had to change the bellows draw by bringing the front and rear camera standards closer together in order to focus at infinity. With a rigid body camera, you can’t change that relationship, so the net effect is instead to bring the “infinity” focus point much closer to the lens.
If you’re lost at this point, don’t fret; stick with me here, as understanding that gobbledygook isn’t really essential to using these lenses on today’s cameras.
Diopters and Meters
Let’s shift now to the more modern use of these auxiliary lenses in rigid body cameras, whether vintage (e.g., Kodak Retina, Rolleiflex, etc.) or more modern (e.g., Hasselblad) where they’re thought of specifically as “close-up lenses.”
Before we dig-in, I’d like to engage in a brief digression and a bit of nitpicking for just a moment. Some people refer to these add-on lenses as diopters (or dioptres if you prefer), but that’s a complete misnomer. It would be like calling your camera lens a “millimeter” or an electric light bulb a “watt.” Diopter is a measurement — not an object. These auxiliary lenses are just that; they’re a lens, like any other lens. It is just a specific type of lens with a specific construction, and with a specific purpose. They can be measured in diopters, but the lens is not, itself, a diopter.
But this brings us to the next point, which is that auxiliary close-up lenses can have different strengths, and they also have different ways of expressing that strength.
Midcentury auxiliary close-up lenses, like those from Kodak, Ednalite, Franke & Heidecke (Rollei) and others, are typically labeled with their diopter strength, most commonly either as 1, 2, or 3. Sometimes they’re labeled as +1 or 1+, +2 or 2+ or whatever, but regardless, that simple number is its diopter strength.
Others, including the Proxar lenses produced for Hasselblad, are labeled in meters, such as 0.5m, 1m, or 2m. That distance in meters is the point at which the subject will be in focus when the main lens is set to infinity.
It’s worth exploring this a little more deeply.
A (Tiny) Bit of Math
My grasp of both physics and mathematics is tenuous at best, but the above-mentioned labeling of auxiliary close-up lenses was initially rather confusing to me, especially with the Proxar lenses for my Hasselblad, since it was difficult to understand their additive effect.
That additive effect is relevant because you can stack (or combine) more than one auxiliary close-up lens for even greater magnification. If the lens is labeled in diopters, it’s easy to figure it out; a 1 diopter lens stacked with a 2 diopter lens delivers a total of 3 diopters of magnification. But when the lenses are labeled in meters, it’s a little more challenging.
It’s easy to grasp that if you attach a 2m Proxar to your camera lens, and turn the lens’ focus ring to infinity, what’s actually in focus will be exactly 2 meters away from the front your lens.* If you mount a 0.5m Proxar, the “infinity” point is half a meter in front. So if you put both a 1m and the 2m on the front, the “infinity” point is then 3m? No, it’s not.
That maximum focus point is a reciprocal of the auxiliary lens’ magnification measured in diopters. The formula that shows the relationship between that “infinity” focus point (in meters) and the diopter strength of the Proxar (or any similar close-up add-on lens) is basically this:
meters = 1 / diopters
Let’s take just one of the Proxars as an example of how this works. We can quickly see that the Proxar 2m is a 1/2 diopter close-up lens, because:
2 = 1 / 0.5
That is, 2 meters = 1 divided by 0.5 diopters.
The 0.5m Proxar is thusly a 2 diopter lens, because:
0.5 = 1 / 2
That is, 0.5 meters = 1 divided by 2 diopters
One other random bit of math; if you want to know the magnification strength, you can find that by dividing the diopters by 4, then adding 1. I’ll use that in the table below.
In any case, knowing the diopter values is the easiest way to see the relative strengths of the close-up lenses, and makes stacking them easy to figure out as well.
To save you some math, the table below has a variety of auxiliary lens combinations (and singles), expressed in meters, diopters, etc. I made this table for the Carl Zeiss Proxars for my Hasselblad, but it’s useful for any type of auxiliary close-up lens. You can use it to:
- Understand the strength of auxiliary lenses labeled in meters. (Just find it under the “Meters (Labeled)” column.
- Understand the net strength of stacked auxiliary lenses if they’re labeled in meters; just look under the “Meters (Labeled)” column. Remember, if your lenses are labeled in diopters, just add the diopter numbers together; you can use this chart for other purposes in that case.
- See the magnifications for the various strengths.
- Look-up the subject distances for when the lens is set to infinity. Just find your auxiliary lens (or combination thereof), and look under the “Inf. Dist.” column.
| Meters (Labeled) | Diopters | Strength | Mag. | Inf. Dist. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5m + 1m + 2m | 2 + 1 + 0.5 | 3.5 Diopters | 1.875x | 0.29m |
| 0.5m + 1m | 2 + 1 | 3 Diopters | 1.75x | 0.33m |
| 0.5m + 2m | 2 + 0.5 | 2.5 Diopters | 1.625x | 0.4m |
| 0.5m | 2 | 2 Diopters | 1.5x | 0.5m |
| 1m + 2m | 1 + 0.5 | 1.5 Diopters | 1.375x | 0.67m |
| 1m | 1 | 1 Diopter | 1.25x | 1m |
| 2m | 0.5 | 0.5 Diopter | 1.125x | 2m |
More Math: Calculating Other Subject Distances
All of that might be useful on a camera like a Hasselblad, because you’ll be able to see right through the viewfinder whether something is in-focus or not. As a result, taking out a measuring tape and knowing all the numbers right up-front isn’t that important. But what if you’re using a close-up lens on an older camera — a viewfinder camera, or a rangefinder camera, for example?
Well, things get a little more challenging, and not only do you need to know the actual subject distance at “infinity” (from the table above), but you need to be able to calculate intermediate positions as well that correspond to the focus scale on your main lens.
For a start, remember that the infinity focus distance is the reciprocal of the diopter, which you can see in the table above. (For example, for 2 diopters, 1/2 = 0.5 meters.) But when you’re focused at something other than infinity, then what?
One way that’s been solved in some cases is with specialized accessory rangefinders that pair with close-up lens sets. I’m personally familiar with Kodak’s solution to this for the classic Retina camera line. You mount a secondary rangefinder to the accessory shoe, and use it to focus your subject. The focus wheel will then indicate both which close-up auxiliary lens(es) to attach to the front of the main lens, and it will tell you where to set the main lens’ focusing scale to ensure that the subject will be focused.
But that’s not the only way. Close-up auxiliary lenses often were supplied with printed focus tables that showed key points on the main lens’ scale, and the corresponding subject distances. You would quite literally have to take out a ruler, tape measure, or yard stick to position the subject at the proper distance manually, since you couldn’t see the focus itself.
If you’re a user of vintage cameras like I am, you might find lenses without this necessary documentation. Or, you might be using a close-up lens with documentation — but it’s in inches and feet (as above), and the camera has only a metric focusing scale. This latter situation is one I found myself in very recently when using that very Ednalite 1 diopter portrait lens on an old Kodak Retina viewfinder camera with a meter-based focusing scale.
It requires calculating everything in metric, but the formula is basically this:
subject_m = scale_m ÷ ((diopters x scale_m) + 1)
The value “subject_m” is the distance of your subject, in meters, from the front of the lens (maybe; see footnote 1 at the bottom of the page). The value “scale_m” is whatever your camera’s focusing scale reads, in meters.
For example, if I put my camera’s focusing scale at 6m, and I’m using a 1 diopter auxiliary close-up lens, then:
.8571 = 6 ÷ ((1 x 6) + 1)
.8571m is the same as 85.71cm. We can divide that by 2.54 to get the value in inches (33.75, or 33-3/4). That means that we can position the front of our camera lens 85.71cm from our subject (or 33.75 inches), set the focusing scale to 6m, and our 1 diopter close-up lens will result in a subject that’s in-focus.
Regrettably, if you have a camera with a focusing scale in feet, you’ll need to do some metric conversions first. (It all makes me wish we’d followed through on metric system adoption here in the US back in the 1970s when we threatened to.)
A Real-World Example of “Doing it By Hand”
OK, so what does this end-up looking like in practice? Let’s say we want to take a close-up photo of a product box. We need to set-up something like this:
The product box we’re photographing is on the left. The camera is on the right. I’ve set-up a tape measure between them.
On the camera — a Kodak Retina II Type 014 (c. 1949) — I’ve screwed-in a Kodak No. 29 Series VI filter adapter, and in that adapter, I’ve placed a Kodak Portra 2+ close-up auxiliary lens. (See the photo a little farther down the page.) This will give us 2 diopters’ worth of magnification.
I could have used the math I’ve already walked through, but the Portra lens has a printed insert that tells me the subject distance and focus ring settings:
The Retina Type 014 has a minimum focus distance of 3-1/2 feet, which means that the subject must be 13-3/8 inches from the Portra lens. That’s where the measuring tape comes-in; I’ve physically ensured that the distance is accurate.
Next, I set the camera to the focus distance I’ve used:
It’s a bit hard to see, but it’s set to 3-1/2 feet.
Once this is all set-up, I can remove the tape measure, and take my photo.
In practice, I’d likely set this up differently (use a tripod, etc.), but this example shows the principles.
Some Common Auxiliary Close-up Lenses
Rolleinar (for Rolleiflex/Rolleicord)
Not too long ago, I wrote an entire article specifically about the Rolleinar, and you can read that for lots of detailed information. The Rolleinars have been popular with Rollei TLR users for a long time, and I’ve sure had a lot of fun with mine.
Rolleinars are available in 1 diopter, 2 diopter, and in some cases 3 diopter versions, depending on their age. It’s possible to stack a Rolleinar 1 and Rolleinar 2 in order to get a 3 diopter magnification if you don’t have a dedicated Rolleinar 3. However, the parallax correction part of the Rolleinar system — known either as a “Heidosmat-Rolleinar” or a “Rolleiparkeil” — is designed for a specific diopter number, so framing the image might be a challenge if you attempt stacking.
The manual for my Rolleiflex Automat MX had this table in back (you can find a PDF of the manual in the Reference Library):
The astute (or mildly obsessive) reader will notice something. See the maximum focus ranges? 39-1/2 inches is roughly a meter. 19-3/4 inches is roughly half a meter. Thus, as I mentioned above, a Rolleinar 1 is 1 diopter, a Rolleinar 2 is 2 diopters, etc. This is something I don’t recall ever actually seeing in print in the materials of the period that Franke & Heidecke put out.
Because of the design of the Rollei itself (being a TLR), and the design of the Rolleinar system, you can focus “live” with them attached, without needed to take out a tape measure or worry about the excruciating detail I wrote about earlier.
Proxar (for Hasselblad)
I’ve already talked a lot in this article about the Proxars and their history. I’m sure they exist for other purposes, but most of the references to these auxiliary close-up lenses in the past couple of decades or so (that I’ve seen, anyhow) have been in reference to the attachments for Hasselblad cameras.
Up through the 1980s, Hasselblad sold the Proxar alongside extension tubes and myriad other accessories. Online forum discussions frequently mention that Hasselblad at some point discontinued the Proxars, and it appears that it was roughly in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Many forum posts are highly critical of the Proxars, with many insisting they ruin perfectly good images. As I discussed above, there may be some impact, but I can’t accept that it’s anything but slight; these lenses were made by Carl Zeiss, had the excellent T* coating, and properly used, can yield outstanding results.
My Proxars are Hasselblad catalog numbers 51662, 51665 and 51667. These three are for the Bay 60 filter mount, and are the Proxar 0.5, Proxar 1.0, and Proxar 2.0 respectively.
Hasselblad also sold Bay 50 versions, which are items 50296, 50318, and 50326 respectively. They’re shown in the middle of a catalog screen shot below:
The Proxars attach very simply to the front of your Hasselblad lens, as would a typical filter. They can be stacked as I mentioned earlier on.
Because the Hasselblad is an SLR and focuses through the taking lens, you can use the Proxars confidently without taking out a tape measure to ensure the image is focused.
Kodak and Ednalite “Series” Lenses (for Various Cameras)
For decades, Kodak (and others, including Ednalite and Tiffen) manufactured filters and other lens accessories as non-threaded drop-in elements, designed to be used with a wide range of adapters that were manufactured by Kodak (and others, but mostly Kodak). The adapters pressed onto a lens barrel with spring tension, or in some cases screwed into filter threads on the end of the lens. There are numerous standard sizes for the Series filters and adapters, from the tiny Series IV (Series 4), to the still small Series V (Series 5), through Series VI (Series 6) and beyond.
The filters you see for the Series adapters include black and white contrast (red, yellow, green, etc.), UV filters, polarizing filters, color balance correction filters (primarily for long-discontinued films like Kodachrome) — and, of course, auxiliary close-up lenses.
My interest in the Series filters and lenses has been limited to my Kodak Brownie movie camera (Series IV), my Kodak Duaflex (Series V), and my Kodak Retina cameras (Series V and Series VI, depending on the Retina model). That said, adapters were available for a huge range of cameras, and not just those from Kodak. I’ll write a separate article on this topic at a later time.
For now, know that Kodak made auxiliary close-up lenses for the Series adapters under the Portra trademark (yes, the same one now applied to the popular color negative film). The Portra lenses were available in 1, 2 and 3 diopter strengths.
The small lenses dropped into the appropriate Series adapter; each one is labeled with an arrow that must be pointed toward the subject.
In the cameras I used my Portra lenses with, there is no ability to focus through the taking lens. As a result, the procedure I outlined earlier with a tape measure is really the only truly effect way to get accurate focus and crisp images. They are, as a result, a bit of a pain to use, but they nevertheless produce some nice and interesting images.
Ednalite, a company long defunct, also made Series compatible close-up lenses. I own just one — a Series V — and like the Portra lenses, it’s marked in diopters and is used the same way as the Portra lenses.
The Results
As I mentioned earlier, in Hasselblad circles, there’s a great deal of debate about the quality of the Proxars and how much they impact image quality. To my mind, this is splitting hairs; auxiliary lenses have a very long history, and have seen a great deal of use over the decades, and for some reason, I’ve never really heard these debates among Rolleiflex purists, Kodak Retina collectors, or in other circles.
To be sure, things like add-on lenses, extension tubes, and teleconverters can all have impacts on an image in one way or another, and adding more layers of glass means more potential for unwanted reflections, unwanted refractions, and other aberrations, not to mention plain old dust, fingerprints, and other annoyances that can absolutely degrade the image in some way. It is indeed probably “best” to have a quality lens optimized for a specific purpose.
But those lenses don’t always exist, and when they do, they may not be economical. That’s why we end-up with things like the Proxars, Rolleinars, Portras, and the many other variants that have been made for 100 years or more, and I’m not going to shy away from them for a theoretical percentage point or three reduction in the overall quality and sharpness of my image if it means opening-up a world of potential images to be captured.
What follows are a variety of images, photographed with Rolleinars, Proxars, and various others. What each image was shot with is noted.
Final Thoughts
As I said, I do hope the results speak for themselves. If you find close-up photography appealing, tracking down compatible auxiliary close-up lenses for your favorite camera seems a worthwhile effort.
Happy (close-up) shooting.
Footnotes
1 In truth, it may not be precisely the front of the lens. The focus scale on some cameras uses a reference point of the front of the lens, while on other cameras the reference point is the film plane. If there’s a film plane symbol engraved on the top housing, it’s a good sign that the reference point is the film plane, not the lens. The symbol looks like this: ⏀ (If the symbol is not visible in your web browser, it’s a circle with straight line going all the way through it, the line parallel to the film plane.) There can also be variation in the accuracy of the focus scale, so you may need to experiment a bit to determine what works optimally for any given camera.
