I like the idea of Steve's "internal" lens hood - must try that. Interesting thought Chris, but I was talking about an external lens hood, in addition to any internal light damping. This lens more than any I have, seems to pick up extraneous light like a magnet. It needs quite a long "snoot" to shi...

I have a Rodenstock APO-Rodagon 90mm f4 and it is very susceptible to flare when mounted on just bellows. I put a tube of black paper on the end of the lens like a parallel lens hood about 2" long. It doesn't cause vignetting but it does make a big difference to the image by removing that haze.

Very nice image - it's nice to see a whole insect like this

Bonjour Seb ,
Il serait bon de voir ces images cousues ensemble...
cordialement, Steve

Superb images...

Beautiful images Marek...

This is not a serious macro image but I think it just qualifies to be macro! I rescued this butterfly from my garage - it had got itself caught between the window and a sheet of plasterboard. I carefully put my hand over it to stop it flapping then wrapped my fingers round slowly allowing it to clos...

If you post some sample images with 100% crops it will give some clues as to the cause of the lack of shapness. I'm sure the experts will be able to give you some good advice.
Steve

Thanks Rik - I usually run Dmap as well as Pmax to see which one handles the subject best and then combine the results. Although having said that, this time in my haste I forgot to do a Dmap. The thread you reference makes an interesting read - the evolution of knowledge! I like photographing shiny ...

I just tried something here... I took three images from the top of the stack and combined them with one image at the bottom, then did a very small amount of retouching from two other images to gain a small area of missing detail. I figured that the images in the middle of the stack were just moving ...

Thanks Pau and Chris for the suggestions. Ultimately the cross polarisation may not give the results I am looking for, but if I am able to experiment for a small cost, it's certainly worth a try. I shall have a play with diffusion and see what happens.
Steve

Thanks Chris for your explanation - I can visualise what you are saying. From my previous experiments, the more oblique the lighting is, the worse this effect becomes, as presumably the angle of reflection is greater. The nearer to axial the lighting gets, the less shift of the image occurs. Normall...

Have you tried diffuse, incident, non-epi lighting with this? It looks to me like you're getting a lot of lighting/stacking artefacts? I mean the "fur". I have tried incident lighting but it brings up the surface too much and creates bright highlights and dark shadows. I've also tried a combination...

Very nice shot Mike - I'm a great fan of metal subjects, and it doesn't hurt to have a bit of dust on something like this - I think it adds to the shot.
Steve

This is just a test shot really but thought it was ok to show. It is the upper right quadrant of a letter T on a copper plated coin (2 pence). 21 image stack pmax - Nikon Epiphot 200 - Olympus 10x 0.3 UPLFLN UIS2 - Nikon CFPL 5x giving 50x magnification. Actually, it would be nearer 55x as the Olymp...