MPE-65 owners - read!

[illusionest]

i've been using the MPE-65 a couple times at 4-5X magnification recently. And the results are confusing me - sometimes the photos appear VERY sharp, and sometimes a bit soft.

I have been looking at my lighting setups, and my subjects. It seems different lighting and subjects will affect the quality.

Q for MPE65 owners, does this occur to you? if yes, is this from the lighting (flash)? could the softness be created from different flash positioning? Or could it be from the subject? My ladybug photos were very sharp, but the spider photos i took were a bit soft.

What's the "sweet spot" (as in aperture setting) for this lens? I've read most of the MPE65 topics here, and it seems f/7.1 is a good range.


Thanks ! :D

[macro junkie]

i can shoot with my flash heads set at any positions and it wont effect the sharpeness of the pic..your either shooting with big appatures or moving just before u take the shot.

for sharp shots your need to use

1:1- f/11
2:1 - f/11
3:1 - f/8
4:1 - f5.6
5:1 - f/5.6

[LordV]

How are you shooting at high mag ? ie handheld/tripod etc ?
Motion blur can be a big problem with high mag shots. Apart from that aperture does play a part - the MPE-65 suffers from a large amount of diffraction softening at 4 or 5:1 so open apertures are necessary if you want sharp shots eg even larger than F7.1. There is even a school of thought that in some cases you might be better off shooting at 3:1 and cropping if necessary.
Try some test shots with the camera on a table with a target such as a tea bag and use different apertures and light setups.

Brian V.

[illusionest]

that could be it. Most of the time i handhold (against the floor, or wall, or something), but i was more stabilized with the ladybug shots.

i'll look into it, i believe its the high-mag camera shake. Thanks!