They claim that it's going to stay in operation (according to an e-mail they sent to registered forum users) but I guess time will tell. It's not enough that it stays in operation, they could easily destroy the community though changes to policy, moderation, and monetization. I used to be a daily po...

My personal stereo microscope seems to have developed a serious fault over the last few years: delamination of the silvering on the pentaprisms for both eyepieces. This has resulted in a rather fogged image, particularly in one eye. In truth I noticed some delamination from the very first day I owne...

Right, I forget about teleconverters! They are more pricey than extension tubes and may (due to added glass elements) impact image quality to a greater extent, but they are also more useful in other situations because they still allow focus to infinity. Good for wildlife photography and astrophotogr...

That non-L 100mm macro is a good lens. I use to own it before I upgraded to the L lens. It was my first macro lens. For Canon gear, I think that was a very good choice you made there. Honestly, I have never found the L version of that lens to be much different, but then I haven't done any scientific...

I saw this on dpreview, I figured there would be a discussion about it here. It looks like they are making this product mostly with video in mind, and it would seem be suited mostly just to use in the field as well. So for people who shoot macro video in the field, maybe it's just the thing they nee...

The problem I had with putting that adapter chain together was the threads on the "M42" extension tubes were out of spec and don't fit particularly well to any of my other M42 stuff. I was lucky in that I ordered four sets, and some pieces of some of the sets fit well. The cone adapters and stuff fi...

Bo, Yup, Raynox here as well! They were just too cost effective to ignore, even though I do have a 100mm and 200mm lens that seem to work very well for the same job. The sequence of adapters that Rik figured out is always good for a chuckle, too. I'll give this a try, probably when it comes time to ...

Chris, Interestingly I just ran into this issue when stopping down my MP-E 65mm. I was getting double imaging in Zerene. I thought for sure that what you described was the problem, until I looked closely at the unaligned vs aligned images... and found that the stopped down images had no perspective ...

Chris, I suspected it wouldn't be a perfect solution, but I've had this M42 iris for years now and don't know what else to do with it, haha. Zerene has been very good so far at handling the type of minor perspective shifts caused by moving my lenses back and forth as the means of stacking. The align...

Max, Yup, closing the aperture at the near and far slice positions for a high DOF shot works very well with PMAX to give you a nice transition from in-focus to out-of-focus regions. I started doing that in January and it's a very useful technique. It definitely wasn't my idea, I heard about it somew...

MaxRockbin, To add, it looks like we use pretty much the same approach in photoshop. It really works well. A few notes that might help - I put my "bandaid" layer underneath most of my adjustment layers. This makes sure that the adjustments get applied to your heals/clones as well, and not the other ...

These are fantastic images, personally I would have left the hairs in (more authentic). This looks a bit like nicely colorized SEM. And I mean that as a compliment: very good textural detail. I have to agree regarding Zerene's retouching features for the most part. Retouching in Zerene is tedious co...

Very nicely done, and you've got some good looking subjects there too. It is possible to get them slightly cleaner (regarding dust/debris) and rejuvenate the eyes of specimens like your Chrysodema radians . Here's a good article (the author is active on this forum too). But if they are highly prized...

Thanks! Yup, those paint sample cards are what I mean. The ones that have multiple swatches per card are a bit small, but some of them are large enough for work around 1x. The nice thing is they are free, the paint is evenly applied and matte, and there are a large selection of neutrals and pastels ...

This is not my usual subject matter, but this project has been on my mind for a while. I’m still working on it but these are my first four images. One of my hobbies is making curries from whole spices, so I have a large selection of spices. I plan to print off a collection of these images, and hang ...