My New Macro Lense (Nine Images) C&C welcome.

oshead

I took delivery yesterday of a new lense, the Canon MP-E 65mm. This is quite a unique lense. Manual focus only. No infinity focus, infact.. this lense has a maxium focus distance of just 101mm (4 inches). The magnification goes from 1:1 (lifesize) to 1:5. Basically it is a reversed lense with a focusing tube. Here are some of my first shots with it. C&C welcome.

Thanks for looking.
Dave OS

Small bee with yellow face - A female Hylaeus. The males have a full yellow face. This little un is no more than 7 or 8 mm long.


Unknown greeen fly. Anyone know what it is?


These are those red little blood mites you see on walls.
Body width less than 1mm.




Captured this fly with a glass and card. Put a dolp of honey on the card and waited till he found it.
While eating the honey he let me shoot to my hearts content.




This critter looked down and out. I put it on a leaf and gave it some honey.
As soon as he finished he was gone out the door. Fully refreshed.

Ricky91t

Wow thats one hell of a macro lens!Excellent pics to love the detail in the flies eye
What camera were you using it on? and how did you find manual focusing?

Good to hear the bee was ok to

Bloody hell,those are class.And there was I thinking nothing would surpass the wasps you got last month!

KStaford

Jeez these are stunning. Are you the fella who photographed the wasps recently?

Roen

I was wondering who'd have the balls to go for the MP-E
Fair play, it's not cheap and must be hard enough to use. I assume it's coupled with the focusing rail and ring flash.

If this is what you get after only a week with it, then imagine what you'll be capturing when you get your head fully around it!
Congrats.

Fionn

really good, excellent shots there!! well done
so honey is the attracter huh? nice one

AnimalRights

Great pics, pic 6 I really liked for some reason though.

Borderfox

Superb shots, you have found your nirvana

Dink

Wow, great pics there!

whyulittle

Feeding down on their luck bees....

Fantastic shots.

im...LOST

Really impressive. Well played. Those Blood mites are tiny! It's some lense to be able to capture it in that quality.

ttcomet

Great shots.

Dades

Man, that first fly picture is freaky!

He seems like he's looking RIGHT AT YOU!

Great stuff, all of them, Dave.

dakar

Can't add anything to the above other than 'Wow'

ike

Fantastic stuff Dave, great to see some quality image from this lens its on my wish list...

Just curious do you use a focusing rail with the MP-E?

PaulieC

add me to the admirers list!

And as was asked by others, what is your technique Dave? How do you get close enough to get the shots without frightening them away? I tried to get a bee in my garden last week, but by the time I had snuck in close enough to focus he flew off and I just got his legs

Valentia

Ah! Great stuff. Looking forward to seeing more.

How much was the lens?

rsom

WOW!!!

oshead

Thanks for the comments Guys.

ricky91t wrote: »

What camera were you using it on? and how did you find manual focusing?

The camera was the EOS 40D. Manual focusing becomes alot easier with a bit of practice.

Roen wrote: »

If this is what you get after only a week with it, then imagine what you'll be capturing when you get your head fully around it!
Congrats.

I have this lense just two days now. The technique I'm using has developed over the last month or two with the very excellent EF-S 60mm macro (Under rated (better than 100mm macro IMHO;))) and extension tubes. So the step up to this lense was a natural progression.

Roen wrote: »

I was wondering who'd have the balls to go for the MP-E
Fair play, it's not cheap and must be hard enough to use. I assume it's coupled with the focusing rail and ring flash.

Although I do own a Focusing Rail. The Velbon Mag Slider. All these shots were taken handheld. A tripod and Focusing rail would only slow me down. I do use a ring flash as much as possible. A 12000th of a second blast of light helps to freeze action like nothing else can. Combine that with 2 stops underexposure of ambinent light and you have classic high speed stop motion photography.

Just on another issue of ID'ing these critters.

Looks like those Red little guys (Images #3 and #4) are Predatory Running Mites. I have further indentified them with a google search. Really fast runners. Seems they feed on other Mites, Pollen, other insect larvae and eggs. They are not harmful to plants and not dangerous to those of the human species.

They were taken @ full x5 magnification. I think around 7.1 AV. Neither of the images were cropped. To put them into perspective... Here is another image of a tape measure at the same magnification, x5 uncropped. So, 3mm from top of the image to the bottom.

PaulieC

just to put this lens into perspective....

"Depth of field at 5X is 0.05mm (one twentieth of a millimeter!) at an effective aperture of f/16. Stopping down to an effective f/64 gives you about 0.1mm to work with. "

oshead

cambo_gueno wrote: »

just to put this lens into perspective....

"Depth of field at 5X is 0.05mm (one twentieth of a millimeter!) at an effective aperture of f/16. Stopping down to an effective f/64 gives you about 0.1mm to work with. "

It's a bleeding microscope... lol

cambo_gueno wrote: »

And as was asked by others, what is your technique Dave? How do you get close enough to get the shots without frightening them away? I tried to get a bee in my garden last week, but by the time I had snuck in close enough to focus he flew off and I just got his legs

Technique, if find is a funny thing. Just when you think you've cracked it. You find some new method that seems to work better. Getting close to the critters is probably the hardest thing to do. Some tips fore approaching them. Be careful not to cast a shadow on them. Always move slowly and at a very even speed. Don't wear bright clothes. Black or grey seems to work best. Try and look for the critters when the weather is changing. Just before or after rain. The temperature drop usually catches some of these guys out in the open and makes them quite dosile.

oshead

Valentia wrote: »

Ah! Great stuff. Looking forward to seeing more.

How much was the lens?

Hi Valentia. I think it set me back close on €650 inc postage from B&H.

Shipped with USPS .

Dave OS

PaulieC

a wee bit off topic, but do you use the MR-14EX ringflash? Is it any use?

oshead

cambo_gueno wrote: »

a wee bit off topic, but do you use the MR-14EX ringflash? Is it any use?

I sure do Paul. It's a very good light. Works out of the box very well, Ie.. Its got built in diffusion. So no need to buy anything else with it. It has ratio control. I usually set it to 1:2 or 1:4 and twist the brighter side to the top. It helps to stop the image from looking too flat. I'd recommend it for sure as your first ringlite flash.

I will probably be upgrading soon to its big brother, the MR-24EX. Apparently a bit more difficult to use and diffuse. But ultimately, with practice, may yield better lighting.

Dave OS

PaulieC

oshead wrote: »

I sure do Paul. It's a very good light. Works out of the box very well, Ie.. Its got built in diffusion. So no need to buy anything else with it. It has ratio control. I usually set it to 1:2 or 1:4 and twist the brighter side to the top. It helps to stop the image from looking too flat. I'd recommend it for sure as your first ringlite flash.

I will probably be upgrading soon to its big brother, the MR-24EX. Apparently a bit more difficult to use and diffuse. But ultimately, with practice, may yield better lighting.

Dave OS

Thinking of investing alright. The fact that it can wirelessly control my 430 EXs is a big bonus. There was an article on flash diffusers in this month's (or last month's) Practical Photography and the ring-type flash was voted best for portraits

ttcomet

There is a short article here on using the MT24 with the MP-E 65 and also using it to trigger a 580 ex II off camera.

oshead

Good article ttcomet. Good info for a controlled studio type environment. For use in the field (or back garden ) shooting bugs, it probably dosn't quite do it.

I've tried the ringlite with portraits only on a few occasions. It's quite good. I don't like the halo shadow it creates on the background behind the subject. Closer head shots produces a really cool ring reflection in the eyes though.

Dave OS