Which macro lens has greatest magnification?

I may need to shoot faulty computer circuit boards and seek the lens capable of shooting the tiniest of wires with great clarity. Which one will give me the most zoom?

MP-E 65mm macro photo. starts at 1x, goes to 5x.

Zoom isn't really the right word, BUT the Canon MP-E 65mm would work just fine.

I looked into a dedicated macro lens but decided for my purposes that a set of Kenko tubes - the ones that work with EF and EF-S - and my 17-85IS lens offered the best option of stabilisation and macro. How many stabilised macro lenses are there?

rhys wrote in post #4373295
I looked into a dedicated macro lens but decided for my purposes that a set of Kenko tubes - the ones that work with EF and EF-S - and my 17-85IS lens offered the best option of stabilisation and macro. How many stabilised macro lenses are there?

Noink's 105mm VR.

Canonista,
Like some others have suggested the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x macro lens should fit your need.
Here is an example, first one taken with a Canon 100mm f/2.8 at 1:1 Life Size, second one taken with Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 at 5:1 5 times Life Size.

Remote Board 2

IMAGE LINK: http://johnbdigital.co​m/macro/remote_board2.​htm#tech

IMAGE LINK: http://johnbdigital.co​m/macro/remote_board2.​htm#5x

Just a small question - how small are the parts you must record?

Very often when shooting closeups (not even to the true 1:1 macro stage) I focus carefully on a flower, and when viewed on the computer screen, I find spider webs that were not visible in the eyepiece.

Spider web material is "quite small". The lens used is a 100 f/2.8 macro and I'm usually working at f/5.6. I would think that circuirt boards being essentially flat that shooting at f/11 would provide adequate detail without going to the expense of the MP-E 65 mm.

In fact, I would try tubes on a 50 mm lens first.

Heres a shot I did for a medical supply client where I used a 100 2.8 Macro. These vials are only about an inch high.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

Glenn NK wrote in post #4376220
Just a small question - how small are the parts you must record?

Very often when shooting closeups (not even to the true 1:1 macro stage) I focus carefully on a flower, and when viewed on the computer screen, I find spider webs that were not visible in the eyepiece.

Spider web material is "quite small". The lens used is a 100 f/2.8 macro and I'm usually working at f/5.6. I would think that circuirt boards being essentially flat that shooting at f/11 would provide adequate detail without going to the expense of the MP-E 65 mm.

In fact, I would try tubes on a 50 mm lens first.

John_B's closeup of the curcuit board and chip might do in a pinch, but a bit more magnification would be nice. Right now we're using a microscope with a built in camera, but the resolution is so low all the pics look like cell phone camera shots. For what we're being paid I'd like to come up with something "prettier".

Canonista,
More magnification can be gotten with a 2xTC or 1.4xTC with the MP-E 65mm (does work with my Canon 2xTC giving up to 10x magnification) but it does make it a lot harder Another possibility is cropping. However if you need more then 10x then I have no idea other than a microscope.

As in the second of John's examples above, you need to consider depth of field as well. With the higher magnification, you may not be able to stop the lens down far enough to get the nearest and furthest objects in focus - just like the posted example by John.

If you want high quality images at the microscopic level, there is always DSLR photomicrography.

Here's one guy's site with pictures of his 30D setup.

http://krebsmicro.com/​webgal2/index.html

http://krebsmicro.com/​webgal1/index.html

one of his setups:

http://home.comcast.ne​t …pix/microsetup/​index.html