Mineral macro questions

[laszlokupi]

Dear Members,

Please let me share one of my macro shots of an azurite crystal group found in Hungary. The frame diameter is about 8mm.
Technical details: Canon EOS 5DsR, Canon EF MPE-65mm at 5x plus 24mm extension tube, two 400Ws studio flash lights with 120cm octoboxes on. Manual macro rail, stacked from 46 photos in Photoshop.
I would be thankful for all suggestions and advices (especially advices about which lenses and macro rails to reach better resolution and higher magnification with) Thank you very much in advance!

[lonepal]

Hi laszlokupi;

What was the ISO and exposure time for the stacked photos?
I see some noise on the photo.

[laszlokupi]

Hi Omer, I think the noise you see is a result of compress or the stacking process. On the original photo I tried to compensate the lack of resolution caused by the MP-E lens, so I sharpened it.
Due to the studio flash, I used ISO 100 on f/5.6 with shutter speed 1/125 (as normal studio setup).

Hi laszlokupi;

What was the ISO and exposure time for the stacked photos?
I see some noise on the photo.

[Pau]

Hi laszlokupi, welcome aboard!

To me, at forum size, it looks sharp enough. At 100% likely it will be another story. At my monitor I see it too dark, with a bit of photoshop work it looks nicer.

To get better resolution at 5X and upwards the best approach is to use good microscope objectives. At the forum you have tons of posts about the subject, you can begin with http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=12147

[laszlokupi]

Hi laszlokupi, welcome aboard!

To me, at forum size, it looks sharp enough. At 100% likely it will be another story. At my monitor I see it too dark, with a bit of photoshop work it looks nicer.

To get better resolution at 5X and upwards the best approach is to use good microscope objectives. At the forum you have tons of posts about the subject, you can begin with http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=12147

Thank you Paul, I checked the link and found a lot of useful information.
It is probably truly a bit too dark, but the aggregates themselves are dark, too. I think lights also need to have some improvements. I took only the first steps on this path and hope to make better pics soon.

[zzffnn]

Welcome to the forum, laszlokupi.

Azurite is beautiful, but not easy to photograph, due to its many faces of reflection.

Is it possible to put more diffusion material much closer to the subject? At 5x and more, you should be able to wrap diffusion material around subject/lens, instead of putting diffusion over light source. That should even out the subject brightness and reduce reflection (yes, some parts of the mineral do look dark on my screen).

And MPE-65 probably won't perform as well as microscope objective at 4x and above.

[laszlokupi]

Welcome to the forum, laszlokupi.

Azurite is beautiful, but not easy to photograph, due to its many faces of reflection.

Is it possible to put more diffusion material much closer to the subject? At 5x and more, you should be able to wrap diffusion material around subject/lens, instead of putting diffusion over light source. That should even out the subject brightness and reduce reflection (yes, some parts of the mineral do look dark on my screen).

And MPE-65 probably won't perform as well as microscope objective at 4x and above.

Thank you, I found MPE to be good enough in resolution up to 2-3times magnification but dark and unsharp below. Now I am looking forward to find a good microscope objective. The two I could find for reasonable prices are the Nikon CFI Plan Fluor 10x/0.30 DIC L WD16.0 and the Nikon E Plan 10x / 0.25 /0 EPI WD 12.5 objectives. Do you think one of them is a good start with a WeMacro rail? I can solve the light with 2 macro Twinlite and as much diffuser as it just needed (closer to the object as you advised).