WeMacro rail and Gold hallmarks

Just bought that first macro lens? Post here to get helpful feedback and answers to any questions you might have.

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Photosbykev
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WeMacro rail and Gold hallmarks

Post by Photosbykev »

A very quick first play with a new WeMacro motorised stage that arrived today.

Slapped a Canon 5D4 and 100mm macro lens with 65mm of extension tubes on top of the WeMacro rail supported on a tripod. Set the lens focus to minimum and then positioned my great grandfather signet ring in front of it. The lighting was a halogen spotlight diffused with a layer of foam packing material wrapped around the lens hood.

I used Helicon remote to control the camera and the rail, no real idea what I was doing wrt to the WeMacro rail settings but I think it was set to 10micrometres/step. 48 images were taken during a move of 480 steps shooting 2 second exposures at f/5.6 iso 200.

1st image is the full frame processed in Helicon focus (some interesting marks/symbols to the left of the offical hallmark which I hadn't seen before)
Image

this image is a 100% crop
Image

Just waiting on a Nikon CFI 10x objective and some tube lens/extensions to arrive so I'll have time to figure out what the WeMacro settings are actually doing lol

regards
Kev

Photosbykev
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Post by Photosbykev »

Interesting comparison using Zerene stacker against Helicon focus. The DMap stacking option in Zerene removed a lot of the halo artifacts with little or no user input. This is a full frame image from a Canon 5D4/Canon 100mm macro lens and 65mm of extension tubes on a WeMacro stage set up to shoot 50 x 0.1mm steps

Image

Looks like more software to buy lol

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

Very nice needle and thread image. Seems the system is working well. Did you use flash, or continuous lighting?

Photosbykev
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Post by Photosbykev »

ray_parkhurst wrote:Very nice needle and thread image. Seems the system is working well. Did you use flash, or continuous lighting?
Still early days Ray but it looks good so far. This was shot using just ambient light with some styrofoam diffusers

Macro_Cosmos
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Post by Macro_Cosmos »

The 2 images in the top level post appears to be broken links.

I know the site is brand agnostic, but IMO Zerene Stacker is better. The algorithms are really good. You can run both Pmax and Dmap, then use masking in photoshop to get the best of both worlds. 95% of the time, Pmax works for me.

-- MC

klevin
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Post by klevin »

Why not use the lens focus motor to do the steps? There's software that automates the process.

Deanimator
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Post by Deanimator »

klevin wrote:Why not use the lens focus motor to do the steps? There's software that automates the process.
While that's a perfectly valid technique (I started stacking with DSLR Controller), it rules out:
  • manual lenses
  • manual extension tubes
  • manual bellows
  • reversed lenses
  • enlarger lenses
  • microscope objectives
I bought a Wemacro and never looked back.

klevin
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Post by klevin »

^ All true, but I find I can do so much with my macro lens, that the limitations are not a problem. Enlarging lenses, long manual extension tubes and my bellows seem so old school these days. I do well enough myself with my 100 mm macro and my 10X micro objective on the front of it for more magnification. When I exhaust the limitations of this setup, maybe a rail. But that could be a long time.

Yes, I've tried the alternatives. Even excellent enlarging lenses have their limitations compared to an excellent macro. Ditto reversed lenses.

JMHO

JohnyM
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Post by JohnyM »

klevin wrote: I do well enough myself with my 100 mm macro and my 10X micro objective on the front of it for more magnification. When I exhaust the limitations of this setup, maybe a rail. But that could be a long time.

Yes, I've tried the alternatives. Even excellent enlarging lenses have their limitations compared to an excellent macro. Ditto reversed lenses.

JMHO
Most excellent macro lenses i've tried proved to be less than excellent tube lenses. Which one you're using?
In fact, my best tube lenses are otherwize average / terrible when used as macro optics. Such as raynox, or agfa repromasters (F9 lenses).

Im aware only of one macro lens which can compete with enlarging lenses. It's MP-E65 which i use all the time, because its very convinient. But its image quality is not even close to what good enlarger lenses deliver.
When using lens focus with 100mm tube, you're dragging it away from infinity, which is fine for low power lenses, but can prove to be disastrous with higher NA glass. Also it's somewhat comparable to focusing by bellows rear along with its pro's and cons.

klevin
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Post by klevin »

I have the 100MM L canon macro. My micro lens is a 10x cheap Nikon. Of course, with nothing to compare to, I don't know if my pics are good or not.

In my early forays into Macro about 15 years ago, I bought several quality enlarging lenses, used them with my bellows, and checked for image quality. No revelations, but I wasn't doing wide open, because I had not yet discovered stacking.

Maybe at some point I'll get a good tube lens and do some serious micro stacking, but I'm having enough fun right now, and learning a great deal on these boards!

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Klevin, if you ever get consumed by the pixel-peeping vortex, you may find you want "just a little bit more", and need to probe the depths.
In the meantime carry on as you are, with potential to do better than anyone thought reasonably possible, just a few years ago!
Chris R

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Post by rjlittlefield »

klevin wrote:I have the 100MM L canon macro. My micro lens is a 10x cheap Nikon. Of course, with nothing to compare to, I don't know if my pics are good or not.
That's a good combo. The sharpest 5X optics in my kit are a 10X objective paired with Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS USM tube lens. See the discussion and test images at http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=15876 and sample stacks at http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=16348 and http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=14570 . The flicker feather (last stack) was shot by using the 100 L's internal focusing. Same technique would not have worked well if at all on the first stack (blowfly head & torso) due to its much deeper subject.

--Rik

klevin
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Post by klevin »

Thank you, Rik, for validating my combo. IIRC I got the idea for the 10Xon these boards some years back when Edmunds was selling the lens. And they still send me catalogs, even following me with a move.

Haven't used it much since I got it, but I see the time is approaching, thanks to the great ideas and advice here. Thank you all

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

klevin wrote:...back when Edmunds was selling the lens. And they still send me catalogs, even following me with a move.
Edmund Optics is quite good at following their customers. One of the most eye-opening :shock: experiences I ever had was in late 2010, when one of the major news websites suddenly presented to me a top-of-page banner offering me 10% off on my next order of Nikon Finite Conjugate Objectives. I'm thinking that's an ad they don't send to very many people...

--Rik

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Klevin - I should elucidate; your combo isn't invalid, but the way you're using can be found to be limiting. You will find that it's not best for deep stacks; as you drag the optics from where they were designed to work (as mentioned above) the corners go off and the quality overall drops from what you'd get if you kept the "tube" lens at infinity.
The 4x 0.1 NA is fine, but at 10x you may find you can't get the depth of stack you'd like. I can't remember the limits, I haven't done it that way for a while, but I remember a small insect which needed a very deep stack relative to the field width, showing the issue.
As also above though, carry on as you are, the method has a lot going for it.
Chris R

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