Is this the right sort of lens?

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Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

MacroDamo
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 7:20 am

Is this the right sort of lens?

Post by MacroDamo »

Hi

I've had a large interest in different kinds of photography ranging from Micro to Astro. I've not yet really worked with Macro yet.

What I'd like to be able to create are images to the quality of these in the link below. I understand that Macro Lenses are a whole new category and that different types of Macro lenses will have different strengths.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09 ... ts-photos/

To really narrow it down, what I'm truly interested in are images such as the jumping spider (3rd pic), the meadow ant (5th), the frogs eye (7th) and the crane fly (15th).

I'm looking to be able to achieve the incredible detail you see in these images, where you can see the entire anatomy of the smallest parts of the bodies. Such as the detailed panels on the eye of an insect.

One of the lens I've been looking at is this one.

http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/camer ... /sel90m28g

Any advice on whether I'm going in the right direction would be highly appreciated. Is there a particular kind of Macro lens suited to what I'm after? Do I need to be looking at more "close up" macro lenses?

Pau
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Post by Pau »

Hi MacroDamo, welcome aboard!

First you need to define the magnification range you want to shot at.

A classic macro lens like the one linked is excellent to shot up to 1:1 ratio, to go beyond that you need to add extension tubes or diopters, bellows and/or to use other kind of lenses.
For very high magnification llike 10X or more the best way is to use microscope objectives.
When magnification increases the DOF is very small so in most cases you need do do focus stacking like with the crane fly you linked.

Here at PMG.net you have lots of sample images and technical info about the setups used to take them
Pau

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

MacroDamo, welcome aboard!

The lens that you're looking at only goes down to 1X optical magnification, which means that your minimum field size will be about 22 mm wide with an APS-C sensor or 36 mm wide on a "full frame" sensor (24x36mm).

That magnification is certainly enough to do the jumping spider and the frog's eye. You would need to do a lot of cropping to get the ant image, unless that ant is a lot bigger than I think it is. The crane fly is probably out of reach even with a lot of cropping.

Some more information about the magnification used for these images can be found by following links in the smashingmachine.com article. The ant goes nowhere useful, but the cranefly links to https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertseb ... 136007042/, where it says that "The lens was set to 5x, so with the teleconverter this must have been about 7x magnification."

For magnifications much above 1X, the options become a bit painful.

If you have a Canon body (or a compatible adapter for a few other cameras), then you can buy the Canon MP-E 65 lens. That covers the range of 1X to 5X optical magnification, with automatic stop-down on exposure so you can focus and frame wide open.

For infinity to 2X, you can buy the relatively new Venus Optics Laowa 60mm. That's less convenient because it's completely manual, but the image quality is pretty good.

You can stick a teleconverter behind any of those lenses to increase the magnification by a factor of 1.4X or 2X. The image quality there may or may not be what you're looking for. Certainly it will not compare with what you would get using optics that are specifically designed for high magnification. The same is true for adding extension tubes behind any of the 1X or 2X macro lenses.

There are other options, all less convenient but having some other advantages such as lower cost or higher quality.
I'm looking to be able to achieve the incredible detail you see in these images, where you can see the entire anatomy of the smallest parts of the bodies. Such as the detailed panels on the eye of an insect.
I'm glad that you provided the link to images that illustrate what you want to do. By the standards of photomacrography.net, those words would usually refer to focus-stacked images shot at something like 5X-10X (frame width 2-4 mm). Focus stacking is something that requires a subject that doesn't move, which in the case of an insect often means dead. But from the examples that you're pointing to, it seems like you're more interested in lower magnification where classic single-shot techniques work.

Is this helping?

--Rik

MacroDamo
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 7:20 am

Post by MacroDamo »

Thank you, Pau and Rjlittlefield. Both very helpful

I've taken a look at some sample images from the Canon MP-E 65 and Venus Optics Laowa 60mm. Both very impressive. I think I'll definitely be looking into the MP-E 65 as that seems ideal.

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