Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Here's a few, nothing like fstop's stuff.

All shot with a 28mm reversed lens at f/11 manual diffused flash at 1/64 power.

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Nice Water Drops. I can't get that with my lens.
Do you ever mount your reverse on tubes??

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Yes, I have. It increases magnifications but DOF becomes very thin, I decided that I like stacked lenses when I go with that much magnification, this is close to 2X but it is almost impossible for me to go much smaller than f/11 because there is not enough available light to focus well. With the stacked lenses I can go as small as f/29 and know that focus will be better than what I am looking at in the viewfinder because of the increased DOF when the macro lens stops down.

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

I've heard you say this several times and I'm not on the same page. How can focus be better than what you see in the view finder.. When the Macro Lens Stops Down?? When the shutter closes?? I'm still lost on this. Also while we are on the subject, my focus will max out at F/22 for best over all clearness, sharpness and focus. At f/25 no better and less chance of capturing focus at least for me, so why would you close down to f/29?? is their a difference with reverse lens??

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Yes, when the shutter blades close, when you shoot with your macro lens you are framing your subject at f/2.8 even though you may have your camera set to f/22. When you shoot your pic your camera is going to close your shutter which will increase the depth of field both in front of and behind your focal point... With the reversed lens the shutter blades are already stopped down, or closed so their is no improvement when I take the picture. With the closed shutter you are also framing your subject in a lot less light than if the lens were wide open and I have found that I tend to actually back focus when shooting reversed lens because of the difficulty of low light. I have learned to pay better attention to this, but even so in the low light it is hard to control. With the stacked lens this is not an issue, you have bright light to use during focusing and when you take the pic just like with your lens the dof improves on both sides of the focal point.

As far as f/22 vs f/29 I have not noticed much degradation in the shots, but there may be more than I have noticed I will have to set something up and try and check that out. Your shots are very good for a straight macro lens, I have been amazed at some of your spider shots, they are the best I have seen done by someone using a straight 1:1 setup. The one thing that I will say about f/29 is that when you are shooting at 3x or larger which I can get when I lens stack, the DOF is so razor thin that DOF may be a better trade off for some loss in sharpness.

I hope that I said all of that right...

richardh76 Loc: VT, Central, Champlain Valley

Interesting Geff, now can I get similar results to your water drop by trying to get images of individual snow flakes?
Richard

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

I understand now said the Blind man. My problem with beyond f/22 really concerns the spider's eyes. At f/9 to f/14 the flash is crystal clear in their eyes but not the DOF I'm looking for. At f/22 great DOF but I start losing sharpness in the eyes due to diffraction. At f/25 it really goes out the door. But with flowers the higher the f/stop the better for DOF which out ways any diffraction. It's not like I'm blowing the photos up to bill board size and I don't have 'eyes' as the focal point.

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

The dew drop photos are fabulous.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Not sure but I don't see why not, those drops are quite small, that is moss growing on the side of an old dead bonzai tree..

No snow down here where I live but if there were I am sure that I would be having fun with it....