Bay I close up filter thoughts

[agnosticnikon]

I recently decided to purchase an inexpensive used +1 close up filter set to use on my twin lens cameras that use bay I attachments. I know there are quality sets around, at premium prices too. I'm going to use it on an old Yashica LM, Rolleiflex MX, and Rolleicord II. These all have quality lenses on them (although not as good as the later cameras) but I wasn't too concerned about the quality of the close up filters, as my main use for them would be more for portrait work. I'm not usually too keen on razor sharp photos with portraits, preferring sharp eyes, but with softer features, so I figured these would be fine.
Has anyone else had any experience using these? Are the Rollei filters that much better for what I'm using them for? Any thoughts?

 

[Too old to care]

For my long gone Mat 124 I had a set of Yashica close up lenses. I believe there were two (+1 and +2) in the set. The taking lens was normal, but the viewing lens was ground on an angle to partially take care of field of view errors do to the different locations of the lenses. I wish it were not so, because I could never tell what I really was looking at, where I can measure the differences with my Mamiya TLRs. Anyway, they produced sharp enough photos for my use, taking close ups of art works (figurines).

Wayne

 

[macrorie]

At one time I actually did some copy work with both Bayonet 1 Accura +1 filters and Bayonet Rolleinar +1 and +2 sets on the same Rolleicord Va. I did not have parallax problems with them - if you have the prism lenses for the camera viewing lens that should be corrected for fairly well. And the Accura lens set was adequately sharp. The Rolleinars had significantly better contrast (they have serious looking coatings on them). I was shooting mostly color slides.

 

[aoresteen]

I hate to say it but close-ups are for SLRs not TLR. That's why I have both.

 

[jochen]

Hello,
the Rolleinars for the TLR are a compromise but not the worst. Their picture quality for close up pictures is quite good if you stop down to f/11. For portrait work the use of a close up lens for a standard focal length (75 or 80 mm) is not the best choice because a close up lens converts your Tessar/Xenar or Planar/Xenotar into a wide angle lens. The perspective of a wide angle is not the best for portraits as the closer parts of the face (nose) are reproduced larger relative to the parts farer away. To prevent this you should not take portraits from closer than 1.5 m. Inspite of this Rolleinars were often used, even with the Tele Rolleiflex, because of the limited close distance of the Rollei TLR-system which was inferior in this point to the Mamiya C 330.