WOW Rik, the stereo views of the larva are magnificent!! Superb work!

Thank you abpho!

Latrodectus bishopi, Red Widow, 1.5mm BL

PMax



PMax

Olympusman wrote:A very challenging subject, so I admire your results.

Thank you very much Michael, I appreciate it!

My first insect stacks rather than arachnids ... as I mentioned, nearly all insects move too much, including most mantids, I was super lucky with these.

Wonderful stacks ! Got to ask how you attach an MPE-65 to a Nikon D800-E and do you have any aperture control ? Brian v. Thanks a lot Brian, a compliment indeed coming from you! :D Check out http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24103 re: the MP-E and a bunch of test images. No real...

Most arachnids are relatively easy subjects to stack, when they're at rest they're typically quite motionless. Insects on the other hand seem constantly to be grooming, fiddling and incessantly waving their antennae. I've recently gotten into raising mantids, doubting that a stack would ever be poss...

Fascinating discovery Brian!!

I hope I manage to get lucky enough when I try this to get images as wonderful as these, well done!

Enough stacking sand!

Protophormia terraenovae, Bluebottle housefly

10X Mitutoyo stack, 223 images, PMax


Crop of above, 50% pixels

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. :D I'll reply at length in a bit, I'm currently re-doing a number of the stacks beginning with RAW conversion so as to correct several stacking and processing mistakes I made, the new results will hopefully give more accurate impressions of the camera and lense...

Just checking... I know that you've labeled both images in your first post as "effective f/5.6". But did that really mean that you were running the MP-E at its wide-open "f/2.8", thus becoming f/5.6 at 1X? And you were setting the D800E on "f/5.6" because it works directly in effective aperture? Or...

Just checking... I know that you've labeled both images in your first post as "effective f/5.6". But did that really mean that you were running the MP-E at its wide-open "f/2.8", thus becoming f/5.6 at 1X? And you were setting the D800E on "f/5.6" because it works directly in effective aperture? Or...

Joaquim pointed out that I was being unfair to the 105mm Nikkor by shooting the stack at f/5.6, and indeed this f/16 stack is vastly improved. Not quite as crisp as the MP-E is at f/5.6, due likely to the increased diffraction. But the fact that the MP-E can perform so well at effective f/5.6 would ...

The results look quite good. I would not describe this as "hacking the lens", however, because if I understand correctly the lens itself is untouched. I see what you've created as being a DIY adapter. Thanks Rik, I'm pretty excited by all of the new equipment and am having a blast. So happy about b...

Very interesting, getting to know the new D800E. I have the feeling that it's too much camera for me, but I'll get used to it. Be warned, batch converting, stacking and even post take forEVER. I'm not yet anywhere close to pixel level detail on it ... always open to hints. I don't believe it's anyth...

William, your image is really exceptional! Ant bristles are a real pain sometimes, I can appreciate all of the touch-up you did on this. All-in-all top-rate work!! I'd definitely recommend finding the 10X Mitty first ... I used a Nikon CFI60 10X/0.25 objective before the Mitty, it doesn't have quite...