what macro lens??

I'm interested in making a dive into macro photography, and being an owner of a 1.7x AF TC I'm thinking about getting a manual lens and use it with the AF adapter to get autofocus...
Just very confused about which one to get, or even a M42 lens + mount??!!
Probably looking at the cheap end at the moment...
Thanks for the help!!

Think you may struggle with this, remember the 1.7 only gives af within limits, you will still have to roughly focus the lens manually, even on my DFA100 Macro I have to manually pre-focus. If the manual lens does not have quick shift(unlikely) you will have problems.

Davex.

Extension tubes.

A few here

Why so?

You can always MF the lens on-top of the 1.7x AF TC right?

Indeed so Stefan, i was thinking about manually focusing an af lens, which of course would not apply here.

Davex.

Don't get an M42 macro lens. You won't be able to see anything through the viewfinder when you try and use it on a small aperture (as you often will with macro).

Gasp! Forget the 1.7TC, that's a telephoto instrument, not a macro tool. (unless intending to remove the glass, just to gain the not-necessary AF coupling ability for use as an extension tube, but that would be heresy - unless the TC is optically crap and already worthless as a TC.)

Anyway; I found this old discussion on this forum via Google, see if it covers your needs:
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/close-up-lenses-vs--extension-tubes-vs-ma...

Also there's some helpful basics re understanding some of the important technicals of macro, in these three sample pages on the topic that are out there in the ether:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/macro-extension-tubes-closeup.htm
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/macro-lenses.htm
http://www.nikonlinks.com/unklbil/macro_adapter.htm

Oh and welcome to macro photography, it's a fascinating field that has consumed most of my off and on camera life for decades.

.R.

That's not true, TC can be used to increase the macro capabilities of a lens.

The TC multiplies the focal length but it leaves the minimum focus distance alone so with a 1.7x TC you can magnify 1.7x more then without one.
I've used a 2x TC to get 1:2 magnification with the DFA100

Thanks, interesting stuff. Do you have refs to any math on that? I've never seen any and was of the belief that a TC is only an AoV reducer (ala the tele family), not a magnifying optic.

And telephotos cannot and do not 'magnify' (unless illusions [of perspective] are allowed to count - or until someone finds a way to put all 3476 km of the moon at 1:1 on my sensor -- or should I say an exact APS-C size R.L part of it in full detail, when taken from terra firma? but you know what I mean).

Btw: The D.FA 100 (both models) already do 1:1 so dropping it to 0.5x is a significant downgrade.

I hope you really meant 2:1 there (double real life size)?

If the latter then that would surely make it a real option, although tubes/bellows/rev... can all do that and more too, but sans the AF.

Also, what is the clarity of the images you produced with a TC combo? Do they stand as "pure" crisp-sharp under critical scrutiny, or are they of a soft (artificial expanded) look?

.R.

[Responding to myself again...]

Great. I've now confirmed that a TC works for this, ref some articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000wE8
http://www.tonywublog.com/20090109/using-teleconverters-for-macro.html

The main extra downside (as opposed to non-optics methods like ext.tubes), appears to be that eg., a 2x extender introduces decreased (image) resolution by a factor of 2, as mentioned here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleconverter

But that's a subjective matter and one that could well be acceptable to the O.P here, considering they already own a TC anyway.

Thanks to Anvh for correcting me on this matter.

.R.

You already figure it out.
Indeed it's 2:1 with the macro lens

Yes when someone types something like that out character of, I just dyslexia assume.

.R.