Lighting for macro photography of fern gametophytes

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 1:45 am

Hi Charles,

Thanks so much for looking. :-)

The aperture was f/2.8 with 45 slices.The 100% magnification looks good. I have it cropped out to show you but I can't upload it for some reason. It looks fine though.

Thanks for these great hints about mirror lockup and using the flash. I don't know much about flash power at all, or the remote triggering of these so I need to read the manual. The mirror lock-up trick you describe sounds ideal as I don't need to use live-view. I'll try putting the diffuser on the flash.

Chris: It sounds from what you say as if I should just stick with the mp-e and magnify the digital image on the computer, rather than fiddling with extension tubes and a dioptre lens. Is that right?

One of the things that really stands out to me is that it's worth doing a lot more experiments on easy subjects like the lens cap as the ferns really seem to be trickier to photograph. I might do some more of that before tackling live subjects.

Thanks for the feedback. This is hugely helpful.

One last question: Do you think I'm kidding myself if I'm pipe-dreaming about using the MP-E lens to take fern pictures of the same sort of quality as the moss photos taken by Des Callaghan? I really really like Des's photos but I suspect he has much more sophisticated equipment than me and probably far higher magnification. After these recent tests of mine I do wonder if I've just gone down the wrong route by choosing an MP-E lens instead of a microscope.

These are the photos of Des's that I have in mind:
http://www.bryophytesurveys.co.uk/photography/

Thanks!

Jen

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:07 am

btw the high magnification moss photo of Des's that I like best isn't on that page, but I don't see it online any more. It was a cracker though. :-)

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:23 am

jsp wrote:I have it cropped out to show you but I can't upload it for some reason.

Check the file length. If the image size is 1024 square or smaller, but the file size is greater than 300 KB, then the upload will be refused.

--Rik

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:28 am

Hi Rik,

The image is only about 500 pixels in each direction and only 330kb but the website just doesn't like it. I tried editing it down from the tiff again and still no luck. Tbh though, it doesn't look that much different from the image above as it only had to click the magnifier icon twice to get to 100%.

Jen

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:36 am

Chris: It sounds from what you say as if I should just stick with the mp-e and magnify the digital image on the computer, rather than fiddling with extension tubes and a dioptre lens. Is that right?

Probably, more or less. There may be a little to be gained, but less if your pixels are small.

A teleconverter is something else others have used - much the same effect as using extension tubes, but you keep your Working Distance.
Some of Des's work is certainly done with a sophisticated microscope, but most obviously those at higher magnification. Some of it is so small you'll need a 10x objective, I think.

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:39 am

330kb

Try using "Save for Web" in Photoshop or similar and alter the "quality" to get a jpeg to below 300kB.
Often the measurement is inaccurate, so I aim for under about 270kB.

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:44 am

I just tried looking up the cost of those nice microscopes on ebay. I think I'll stick with the MP-E. :-):-):-)

Thanks for the tips on the image uploading. Here it is. :-)

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:49 am

The scuffs on the coin make it a bit hard to tell if there is fuzziness don't they? I wonder if I could find a brand new 10p with no scuffs and try that. There is one long scratch towards the top left that is very good and continuous which I find encouraging.

The thing I find so ironic is that that first image that I posted on page 1 was really quite good and relatively cheap and easy to take. It was only a 50mm zuiko manual 1:2 lens and some extension tubes and it got me so close to the perfect image. Then three years work and about £1000 later I'm not that much closer, oddly. It's really worth keeping the head screwed on in this business I think, in case of accidentally burning money needlessly.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 3:12 am

jsp wrote:The thing I find so ironic is that that first image that I posted on page 1 was really quite good and relatively cheap and easy to take. It was only a 50mm zuiko manual 1:2 lens and some extension tubes and it got me so close to the perfect image. Then three years work and about £1000 later I'm not that much closer, oddly. It's really worth keeping the head screwed on in this business I think, in case of accidentally burning money needlessly.

Yes, it's frighteningly simple to spend money in the wrong places.

At 5X, an old 50mm f/2 lens reversed and set to f/2.8 will act very much like an MP-E 65 at 5X and F/2.8.

The advantage of the MP-E is not particularly its performance at 5X, but rather the fact that it does very well all the way from 1:1 to 5:1, at the turn of a ring, with auto-diaphragm control over the whole distance.

To do significantly better at 5X and above, the path involves a 10X microscope objective, which will suffer from much less diffraction blurring. Those things are not necessarily expensive or difficult to use, and they certainly don't require the whole microscope. Some guidance is provided at "FAQ: How can I hook a microscope objective to my camera?".

--Rik

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 7:03 am

Wow! That sounds much more feasible. :-)

That would give me the magnification that I need without having to blow a ton of money. I already have extension tubes and a 80mm-200mm zoom (20 years old but still good). That would mean I'd just need the microscope objective and the adapter. I see that those objectives are only about £30, which is much better than the usual £700 that camera equipment seems to be. I have an old microscope that has a 5x, a 10x and a 20x objective so I could look to see if they would do.

If I could hook up a microscope objective to the zoom lens then perhaps I could do the focus stacking using the internal stepper motor in the zoom lens as suggested up-thread, and that would take a whole lot of the complexity out of the project.

I think this (below) is the right adapter isn't it? My zoom lens has a 52mm thread.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RMS-microscop ... xyLm9TFviJ

Thanks so much for this. This discussion forum is such a fantastic place to be. :-) I'll go and dig out my microscope objectives. :-)

Jen

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 7:25 am

My old microscope doesn't look like it would do the job, so I'll get back to saving up.

Do you think a really good 50mm f/1.8 reversed would really be just as good as the MP-E? I have one of those and if it's really just as good then I might be as well just to sell the MP-E.

Thanks,

Jen

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 9:36 am

jsp wrote:Do you think a really good 50mm f/1.8 reversed would really be just as good as the MP-E?

For your application, that's a distinct possibility. The best answer must always be "try it and see", because there are big differences from one lens to another. But in broad brush, at 5X the MP-E is just a 45 mm f/2.8 lens extended by about 225 mm beyond what in theory would be its infinity focus position. If your f/1.8 is sharpest near wide open, it should compete well.

The MP-E is also optimized for use at that focus ratio, so it will probably have a flatter field and better quality in the corners than the reversed normal lens. Of course the flatter field doesn't really matter when you're focus stacking, and some loss of corner quality is often acceptable.

There's also a good chance that you could improve the corner quality of the reversed 50 by using it in conjunction with a high quality 4 diopter closeup lens between the 50 and the camera, or using the 50 stacked in front of a 250 mm telephoto, so that the 50 would be put back to the same focus ratio that it was designed for. See HERE for some discussion of the corner quality issue.

If you reverse the 50 in front of a long telephoto, then it's probably best to stop the 50, not the telephoto. See HERE for further discussion of that.

--Rik

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 9:47 am

That's a very interesting thought then. I really want to photograph ferns of the size that I've shown and much smaller, so having a very expensive lens (MP-E) that doesn't even get down to the right magnification is definitely a false economy if there are better cheaper alternatives.

My 50mm f/1.8 is an absolute cracker. It's an Olympus Zuiko manual and takes the most amazingly sharp shots with great bokeh. Corner problems don't matter to me at all as I want sharp centre subject and black background. I already have a 4x dioptre lens for the Zuiko.

Perhaps the thing to do is to buy the microscop objective and try it, and sell the MP-E if it seems that the microscope objective is the way to go.

Thanks!

Jen

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 9:52 am

The ideal, it seems to me is to have the microscope objective on the end of the zoom lens and do the focus stacking using the internal stepper motor but edging it forward with the focus control in the EOS sofware. However, it seems that I can't trigger the remote Yongnuo flash automatically while also controlling the camera from the EOS software.

Does that mean that to get this set up to work I need to have a canon flash triggered from the camera instead of the Yongnuo flash? I'm getting good shots with just one flash, so that could be done within budget if I buy it used.

I could just trade in all the bits that I have for the right bits, if that's what it takes to get the right magnification.

jsp · Post by **jsp** » Sun Dec 27, 2015 10:44 am

If I was to buy this then have I got the right thing from your description of attaching a microscope objective to the camera? It looks right to me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-10X-MICRO ... SwI-BWPzPh

Sorry to be asking so many questions. It's just because I'm on holiday and getting on with things. :-) Thanks so much for answering. :-)