Help needed: Macro capabilities of Oly kit lenses

[Thomas]

This is a cut-out from another post from Cam-I-Am:

I'd like to form an impression about what macro performance you would be able to get from a DSLR with a regular kit lens. In particular the Olympus E-410 dual kit lens set. According to info I was given the largest magnification would be 1:4.1 at the tele end of the 14-42 lens at a min. focus distance of 20 cm.

This is the list I was given.

FD------Mag.------Min Foc. Dist.
14------1:12-------23cm
42------1:4.1------20cm

40------1:33------149cm
150-----1:8-------143cm

Does that look about right to you?

Do you perhaps know of a source for some sample macro photos made with this 14-42 kit lens?

Ben
_________________
When in doubt..... Press the shutter.

Can someone help out?

[Thomas]

This is very hard to answer without having the lenses because most of the modern lenses reduce their focal length when focusing up close (even modern fixed focal macro lenses like the micro-Nikkor 105/2.8 VR do "it")
At least one thing I can say: 20cm distance from the sensor to the subject is short enough to generate 1:4.1 magnification even if the "real" focal length of the zoom shrinls to 32mm. So I would say "yes", it's entirely plausible.
As to the 40-150 with a closest focus distance of 143cm: a magnification of 1:8 could be reached with only a shrink to 141mm. So this also looks plausible.
But again: the shrink-factor of each modern zoom depends on many factors and can only be estimated from the external data.

[Cam-I-Am]

Thanks.

The problem is that without some real examples these values are hard to interpret. It's difficult to get an idea what kind of results you can expect with these lenses.

Ben
_________________
When in doubt..... Press the shutter.

[Thomas]

Well, have a look at this thread. This lens can do 1:4.2.
The shots in that post are around 1:3.
For what I photgraph a magnification of 1:3-1:4 is mostly enough. But 1:8 and less doesn't cut it for me.
The problem with the Oly kit lenses is the minimum working distance for the 14-42mm at 20cm. that is from the sensor. This leaves you with less than 15cm form the front-lens. Most any form of small animal will not let you get that close