Canon MP-E 65mm 1x-5x Macro Zoom -- FREE Hints Card

[scottburgess]

For those new to the MP-E 65mm, it occurred to me that I should share this handy little tool I made when starting out with it. To make it useful, I suggest printing it on stiff paper, like construction paper, cutting out the useful part, then taking it to a FedEx Kinkos for lamination. I can fit two of this sort of card on one lamination sheet (they need space around them for the lamination. Finally, cut out your laminated tips card, taking care to round the corners.

The colored boxes are set to approximate the view at that magnification, so if you're looking at a flower or bug you can get an idea which size you want for the composition you have in mind. With that set, ease the camera in at approximately the working distance (distance from front of lens) according to the navy-colored line for that magnification--fine adjustments are possible with a focus rail. The DOF info here is less practical and mostly reminds me that there is next to none!

One of the hardest things to do when starting out with this lens is get the magnification and working distance right. This helped me a lot.

I hope this translated well--I couldn't upload the PDF version here, so I converted it to a JPEG and cropped it, and I am not confident the proportions and quality will be retained. Print in color full sized--the printed uppermost working distance line should be 4.0 inches wide.

Enjoy, folks! If people like this, we can try to work out a way to share the full PDF version.

--Scott

[DQE]

I wonder if it's technically possible for Canon (or Nikon) to make a high-quality 100mm 1-5X macro lens with properties similar to the MPE-65? Ideally it would also be much narrower, of course, as long as the mechanical stability of the MPE-65 lens is preserved.

Actually, I'd prefer an 0.5-4X magnification range - then I could probably take 99% of my bug photos without having to remove the lens in favor of my Canon 100mm fixed magnification lens.

[Craig Gerard]

A negative value doublet diopter or 'focal reducer' would be useful, if such a thing exists? (see Speedbooster note below)

High quality doublets tend to have good correctional qualities. This was the case with my Tokina 0.4x. It improved the performance of many lenses but its main role was to allow for closer focusing capabilities of some cinematic lenses.

Metabones have a 'Speedbooster' often used for videography, it is placed between the camera body and the main lens. It is not an ordinary adapter, it delivers a larger field of view.

Mounted between a mirrorless camera and a SLR lens, Speed Booster™ increases maximum aperture by 1 stop (hence its name), increases MTF and makes lens wider by a factor of 0.71x. Optics designed by Caldwell Photographic in the USA (patent pending).

Reference:http://www.metabones.com/buy-speed-booster

Metabones Speedbooster White Paper:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/485 ... _Paper.pdf



Craig

[Roy Patience]

Scott,

Great idea! I made something similar with graph paper back in the film days.

I had an idea a few days ago that I haven't had time to work on yet. I wonder if I could make a card to substitute for the subject that would measure magnification and then "show" DOF for a given aperture. As you can tell, the idea needs a lot more thought.

Roy

[scottburgess]

@Roy: Thank you kindly! I appreciate the positive feedback. Just hope that folks find it useful. I still use it in the field when starting up each summer because I just don't remember visually at first what the working distances are.

@DQE: wouldn't you rather have a compact, dedicated zoom tube lens? Perhaps a 150-300 focal length range, f/8, and inexpensive but very sharp? That would allow you to add a microscope objective of choice for a range of focal lengths... I'm not sure I desire a longer focal length for the 1x-5x considering how long and dim the lens would be when racked out.

@Craig: I'd never heard of this before... what are the tradeoffs? Would this only work with particular optics? Can it be made to work with a mirrored camera?

Thanks for sharing these, folks!

How about a Canon EOS macro bellows system with a high-end finite objective set? The bellows could be electronically controlled, like a StackShot tied into the camera. The lenses wouldn't have to meet the RMS (or similar) standards, could use M28 or M30 to let lots of light in. Would be pricey lenses, perhaps, but not inordinately when compared to an infinity objective package. And a dedicated LED macro lite system for the bellows could be created to throw a lot of frontal light and surround light on the subject while controlling light modeling with A-TTL metering.

I could make an argument for the latter based on the profit margin of all the accessories--Canon loves to sell us more accessories! By breaking this up into a lot of separate, small items it would sucker more folks into investing in the system. Oh, it's only a few hundred to get started with a 5x objective. This accessory costs $50 more. Pretty soon you've spent $5000. This makes sense to me. They have the largest suite of amateurs who might buy these products. Plus why let Mitutoyo and Nikon and Novoflex make money on deep micro, when you can slurp up money for yourself by making it more accessible to amateurs and pros who want to carry it into the field?

Heck, they could even use it to enter the educational microscope market by integrating inexpensive scopes to use the objectives and camera bodies (along with plain eyepieces). As the cameras upgrade, images and video from the microscopes are quickly upgraded as well by swapping in a new body. Likewise newer objectives can be released if there is sufficient demand.

Or perhaps I just need to wake up and stop dreaming?

I would love to hear what other folks think is most marketable among super-macro products. What do you think would be viable as a new product?

Scott