Defective Equipment or Photographer? 100mm 2.8 macro

[robertnzana]

Today I did some experiments with my 100mm 2.8 macro USM lens and not 1 of them were sharp at 100%. Here were my settings...

* Tried AF and manual focus
* 1/200 - 1/250
* F11-F29
* Tripod with Remote Trigger
* 430EX II Flash with diffuser

It seems that my settings are ideal for macro. My subject was a sleeping wasp on a leaf. The wind was blowing slightly.

Am I the problem here or is it the lens and/or camera? How can I figure this out?

Here's an example 100% crop (one of the clearest I got):
http://www.growtech.us/download/pics/WaspHeadCrop.jpg
1/200, f11, 400iso

Thanks

[Choderboy]

I have some suggestions for testing:

Stick with F11
Use Manual Focus only
Pick a static subject
Photograph indoors with no wind
Rest the camera on a beanbag

Any sharpening on your example? In camera or post processing?

[krb]

The wind was blowing slightly.
At macro distances it doesn't take much motion for something to move out of focus.

[robertnzana]

In camera pp jpeg.

[themadman]

Well, you could do some control tests with your lens indoors.

[Choderboy]

100% crop from a 1DMKII / MPE-65
F/11 1/100 ISO100

The fact the spider is on my thumb means I'm close to ideal studio setup.
I would have been resting the end of the lens on my arm, focus achieved by moving my thumb. If the same spider was on a leaf , with any wind at all , I could take a few hundred shots and maybe not have one as sharp as this.

[DQE]

Ideally, you would want to brace the "spider/thumb assembly" against the camera lens, so that the lens and subject are mechanically linked. This way, if your camera moves a little, the thumb/spider assembly will move in sync with the camera/lens assembly. Many people use this technique in the field, grasping a flower stem with their left hand and bracing the hand against the camera/lens as rigidly as practical.

Also, If you have a good tripod, set up a test object of some type that has a lot of detail in it, and try that. Your flash exposure should be short enough to freeze camera shake and subject motion. An alternative is to place the test object on a table and rest your camera/lens on the same table so as to prevent most camera shake. Perhaps a very fine grade steel wool pad would work as a fine detail test object for this purpose. Home Depot or hardware stores have such things.

I hope this suggestion helps. The focus doesn't have to be off very much to cause a lot of image detail loss.

[LordV]

To check if there is a problem with the lens (which I severely doubt) I'd set it up on a table with a vertical target such as a cereal box (with extra lighting if necessary so you can see the target). Use MF and move the camera forward until you get good focus in the viewfinder and then hold the camera down on to the surface with your left hand - check the focus is still good and fire with a remote or the shutter button. As DQE mentioned- this technique mechanically links the camera to the target and stops any relational movement between the two. Using a flat target rules out DOF problems etc.

Brian v.