American soldier fly

[Johann Schutte]

Canon 70d. Tokina 100mm prime (as Tube lens). Nikon mic objective.

 

[Overread]

Beauty of a shot! Shame you couldn't get more of the eyes; but really love the result you've got!

i assume you photostacked and the edge of the eyes got lost in the stacking process? In general I find you've got to stack with the frame almost backwards in that hte last frame should be the entire frame you want; whilst hte first should have waste.

 

[Johann Schutte]

Beauty of a shot! Shame you couldn't get more of the eyes; but really love the result you've got!

i assume you photostacked and the edge of the eyes got lost in the stacking process? In general I find you've got to stack with the frame almost backwards in that hte last frame should be the entire frame you want; whilst hte first should have waste.

Exactly what happened! This was done a year or so ago. Won't make the same mistake again.

Do you have ideas on mechanical/electrical fine positioning of the subject? This is a real problem if you try and deal with it manually using bluetack and whatnot at larger than 1:1. I have looked at the precision engineered stuff, but very very expensive, and my wife is in clear disagreement whenever i broach the topic, irrespective of how subtle. i have been given the advice to assemble something with the stepper motors from old CD drives, controlled with arduino, and am looking into that.

 

[Overread]

I've got my eye on the Cognisys stuff, however going by what you say I supsect this is either what you've seen already or is still out of your price range
Cognisys - Capture the Hidden World

Although if you can hide a bit away under the mattress every so often you might be able to save up for a kit.

Custom setups I've not done as I lack experience and tools; but if you've got that then I'd head over to
www.photomacrography.net :: Index
And ask; they've a very dedicated and serious segment of the population so chances are that there's a good few in there who might well know how to do this or have done it.

 

[Johann Schutte]

Thanks for the quick response. I have Cognisys' stackshot. What I'm looking for is something to fine tune the subject's position, i.e. fine adjustments in all three axes, as well as roll, yaw & pitch. Not sure if Cognisys makes something like that. I think I've been to photomacrography. There are lots of improvised systems. am surprized that no-one has come up with a commercially available positioning system for the macrophotogapher, or none that i am aware of.

 

[Overread]

I've not looked but I think they do have a 3 position system; though most I've seen for that have been for those 3D room composits rather than insects.
Don't forget you could always mount the subject to the stackshot - in the past for fun I put everything I had onto one lens to do a macro shot of a ballpoint pen (the ball filled over 50% of the frame), for that I put the pen on a bit of bluetack on the focusing rails and moved that - was very rough and ready but worked okish for that; stackshot should work for that; though yes would only be one axis.