Bad hair day!

[Overread]

Also titled "OMG I forgot how to macro"

So its been a while since I had my MPE 65mm out, so long in fact that I've half forgotten how to use it! So there I was shooting away thinking "hey this high magnification stuff isn't had hard as I remember".
Only to then zoom in and go "hey wait why is this all soft.... oh." Because in high magnification macro one thing you have to keep in mind is as your magnification goes up, so too does the aperture. Which means you have to turn the dial to open the aperture up more. Otherwise you geti nto th

All photos of a Hebrew character (Orthosia gothica) moth.

Sigma 70mm macro

Canon MPE 65mm macro at 5:1

If the wiki page is right then the effective aperture for this shot was f78
(a result of f13 camera setting times the magnification +1) So 13 x (5+1)

Canon MPE 65mm macro at 5:1

Now this is a much sharper shot of the scales that make up the wing, and also focusing on the most clear marking that makes this moth out to be a Hebrew Character . This was shot at f4 which makes for an effective aperture of f24, still really small, but far sharper.


Of course this can be hard to tell at these internet sizes. Resizing with sharpening typically increases sharpness quite a lot. Plus for the first photo I did add a lot of sharpening at the first stage.

Here we see two parts of the above photos side by side at their original size. Here you really can see the dramatic difference in sharpness and overall resolution of detail.



Tips for next time - practice and have breakfast before starting photography!
As always any hints/tips/advice/critiques are most welcome!

 

[K9Kirk]

Nice set.

 

[Jeff G]

The texture is impressive. Looks like you've still got it.

 

[Derrel]

If I understand your post correctly the moth is called a Hebrew character. That is kind of an unusual name for an insect.

 

[Overread]

Thanks guys!

Derrel - yep its a strange name, but its named after the almost symbol like black mark on the wing that's quite distinctive.

 

[tirediron]

Nice... I wish that Nikon had an equivalent for that MPE 65...

 

[Overread]

Nice... I wish that Nikon had an equivalent for that MPE 65...

Canon did update their twinflash a while back to make it more modern and add some wireless functions to it for controlling and integrating with their new wireless system. MPE is still without an update sadly. I've seen a good few comparisons with some very specialist optics which do beat the MPE, but they were mostly fixed magnifications and whilst their performance was way better they could only do one magnification. MPE remains super unique, my worry is that its so unique that Canon might never update it either. I'd love a version with the last 10-20 years worth of lens and glass developments rolled into it.


Also you could always come to canon land