Testing out the Raynox 250 + 100mm non-L

I would love to get an mp-e 65mm someday, but given that I don't have the funds right now, I picked up a Raynox 250 for about $80. The pics below are approximately 2.5:1, and I would say the quality is fairly decent for such a cheap addition. I also considered Kenko extension tubes, and although I'm sure the clarity would be slightly better, they cost more than twice as much.

Here's a green bottle fly, just slightly cropped:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …s/gatorlinked/6​164453811/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …s/gatorlinked/6​164453613/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …s/gatorlinked/6​168432592/

Great shots. If you're interested in tubes, other people make ones that are less expensive than the Kenkos.

Very nice shots.

Not bad...you want more mag. I might also suggest a Raynox msn-202. I was very satisfied with this as a substitute when my mpe was stolen...

Sample:

Thanks for the comments, folks.

archer1960 wrote in post #13139865
Great shots. If you're interested in tubes, other people make ones that are less expensive than the Kenkos.

Archer, I have heard some good things about the Opteka tubes at about half the cost of the Kenkos, but when I went to buy some, I saw that Opteka and major retailers like Amazon were out of the Canon version. That was a drag, because I would rather have gotten those than the Raynox. I really wanted to maintain aperture control, though, I decided not to consider the really cheap ones that are notoriously spotty in that regard. Of course, it's possible some other brand would have worked fine, but I'm too chicken to test that theory.

mr.white wrote in post #13140332
Not bad...you want more mag. I might also suggest a Raynox msn-202. I was very satisfied with this as a substitute when my mpe was stolen...

The one thing that I noticed was that besides the working distance being even smaller than the mpe, the plane of focus is also smaller. So I would need to jack the f-stop up to f/22 minimum. This might also apply to your R-250 based on the shallow focus on the eye.

Hope this is helpful, don't mean to hijack or anything.

Paul

Paul, don't worry about hijaking; those are some crazy close-ups (particularly the weevil)! Thanks for the suggestion. If I can figure out how to fully handle 2.5x (not there yet!), I may give the 202 a try. I haven't really experimented yet with apertures tighter than about 9. The fly was shot at 7.1, the flower at 8, and the fulgurite at 9. I should probably not even consider going below 11 or 16. I'll try some shots soon at 16 or 22 to see if diffraction is still acceptable at that level.

Lovely captures
Brian v.

Thanks, Brian. I'm currently looking into purchasing Zerene Stacker based on your general recommendations to people, because I would like to try that fulgurite shot again where certain additional parts of it are in focus. I think that will get me closer to achieving my original goal for that shot.

Lovely shots.

gatorlink wrote in post #13145210
Thanks, Brian. I'm currently looking into purchasing Zerene Stacker based on your general recommendations to people, because I would like to try that fulgarite shot again where certain additional parts of it are in focus. I think that will get me closer to achieving my original goal for that shot.

If you want to try stacking before spending money, you could try CombineZP; it's the one I use, and it's free. From what I understand, it's not quite as cool as Zerene, but will give you a feel for stacking before you decide to spend money on it.

archer1960 wrote in post #13145290
If you want to try stacking before spending money, you could try CombineZP; it's the one I use, and it's free. From what I understand, it's not quite as cool as Zerene, but will give you a feel for stacking before you decide to spend money on it.

Thanks for the tip. I will try that first. At the moment, my steam-powered computer from the dark ages probably couldn't run either package at a reasonable speed, but I have a new machine coming next week (hooray!), so once I have liberated it from the cancer of bloatware, I'll download CombineZP and give it a try. All I know for sure is that now that I'm experimenting with greater than 1:1 magnification, I need to learn to stack to get what I want out of certain shots.

Tried out CombineZM tonight on a bee that died of natural causes on my porch. I look forward to testing out this software a little more in the future. The results obviously aren't as good as what many of the people on this forum achieve, but it's nice to know that one can get decent results by more or less clicking "go" and watching the magic happen.

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