Arrrgh! I'm so close...

...to useable reversed-lens macro shots. For thie life of me though I cannot work out the DOF. It is nearly pitch-black in the viewfinder, yet the DOF is still way too shallow!

Anyways, this is what I have so far. They look pretty bad, and the detail isn't there at all, but I think it is a step in the right direction. There are all uncropped (resized) or nearly uncropped.

Here is a mosquito that tried to feast on me:

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No exif data for your pics, so I can't tell what your settings were on your camera. Are you shooting at or about f/11 - 13? That will help with DoF, shutter speed should be about 1/200 sec..

Yup. Aperture on the reversed lens is f/8, and on the forward lens is f/8 as well. All shot at 1/200th shutter speed.

The problem is that with the smaller apertures on the reversed lens, the viewfinder becomes almost pitch black. Anything past f/8 is nearly impossible to see.

You could add some focussing lights. I use the twin flash with the MP-E 65mm at high magnification. Often it will be so dark you can not focus without the flashes focus lights, just double tap the shutter button and they come on. If you are stuck for budget you could try a small but bright tourch strapped to your flash.

Open the reversed lens right up, as wide as possible so that it lets as much light in as possible. Your usual lens stop down to around f11. That's why it's so dark

Dave

dpastern wrote:
Open the reversed lens right up, as wide as possible so that it lets as much light in as possible. Your usual lens stop down to around f11. That's why it's so dark

Dave

If I open up the reversed lens, them my DOF gets a ton smaller (at least, it seems like it does). If I'm correct on this, even if the forward lens is at f/11, but the reversed one is at f/1.6, then the 1.6 limits the DOF and the f/11 does nothing. Am I wrong here?

f/8 is as low as I can go without the viewfinder being pitch black (unless it is very bright outside).

I am so going to try that as soon as I get home, I don't remember reading that one in the manual. I hope it works because it is really hard to keep the subject in the view finder at 5x and reach up to hit the lamp button at the same time. Thanks for the tip!

My understanding was that the reversed lens was opened right up and not stopped down. I could be wrong, I've never played with reversed lens before...one of the other guys will be able to definitively answer your query I suspect!

Dave

Well darn it didn't work. Would it be because I am using a 10D? I was so excited too.

AFAIK Dave is right- you should open up the reversed lens and shut down the primary lens to F11 or F13. That's how I used to do my higher mag shots before I got the MPE-65- just think of the reversed lens as a high dioptre filter attachment lens- no aperture diaphragm on those. Think you will find the dof will be better but it's very narrow at high mags anyway.
Brian V.

I could be wrong, but I thought you had to be wary of both apertures. I did a small, un-empiracle test with different apertures, and I think it agrees with me, but I could be wrong. See for yourself:

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