Terrible news. To me, Robert was an institution, the epitome of competence in macro and micro objectives. And with his extremely helpful and uncomplicated nature, someone you wish would live to be at least a hundred years old because anything else would simply be unimaginable. The gap this leaves is...

All,

Today I got the shocking news that Robert O'Toole has passed away. Does anyone know if this is true? I read a message said to have originated from his wife, but I simply cannot believe it and still hope it is not.

Daniel

I have recently added two LED lamps to the setup that enables me to produce quite acceptable picture quality while before I just worked with several flash units. With the former setups I never was successful in producing really sharp LED images. It always was kind of unsharp, especially when magnifi...

@ blekenbleu: Regarding the diffuser made of the IKEA lamp shade "Melody" (sorry, my reply is very late, just saw it today): It is the perfect diffuser. Easy to get from Ebay, looking for that lamp. Just be careful, there are two sizes in diameter. Mine has a maximum diameter of 28 cm. There is a la...

@ Macro_Cosmos, regarding the bellows. Sorry, I have missed some replies in this thread. Yes, I would certainly choose it again. The main advantage I see is that front and back have a round plate that can easily be detached with two screws on the side. One plate carries the camera, the other one car...

@mjkzz: Well, you can cut it to any size desired. I shortened it and opened it on the bottom side, where I deformed it to attach the height adjustable base part. Without shortening, the "melody" lamp diffuser would certainly be a bit large.

@AIP: Thanks for the hint, I'll keep that in mind.

Sorry, the reply was meant for J_Rogers... ;-)

@AIP: Thanks for the demonstration. I have checked the using instruction of the Novoflex Castel Micro again and saw that I mistakingly remembered it wrong: They recommend the continuous mode for flash or for very short shutter speed in continuous light. And based on the performance of my LED lights,...

@Pau: That's what I just tried yesterday, and I was surprised about the result. I use an EOS 5D MkIV and sometimes an EOS 5DSR. Thanks for the explanation, that is exactly what I suspected based on the shutter noise. However, I'm currently toying with the idea of swapping the 5D Mk IV for an EOS R, ...

Hi all, up to now I just did focus stacking with 2 to 4 flash units (full format Canon, Novoflex castel micro, from 1:1 until 20:1). Good results, but the mignons keep failing mid of the series. Even new rechargable mignons of good quality. I also have two 60 Watt LED studio lights, but with those I...

Hi John,


I just made a little overview from my current setup:

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=43628



Best regards,

Daniel

Hi all, I would like to present my current focus stacking setup. It's the result of a kind of evolution; in the roughly ten years I've been using focus stacking it has been the third setup (and the way I am satisfied with it, it might be the last one). The first one was quite rudimentary, just using...

Beatsy, I remember having seen it in products of the German company Novoflex: They have a special bellows unit („Castbal Pro“) operated with their stacking unit („Castel Micro“) that seems to do just what you mentioned. I have tried it a while ago but didn‘t get along with it. Probably the objective...

Instead of creating a fixed tube for the tube lens, I am using a bellows system. This gives me perfect flexibility in terms of magnification or finding the sweet spot of the objective. The distance of 210 mm given for the Mitutoyo M Plan Apos is necessary for getting the exact nominal magnification ...