*** Post your Macro Shots - Alien Safari ****

Here's what I used. The piece of paper is already on the lens, a bit banged up from use. The items are:

• 40D+grip

• 50mm f/1.8 II

• Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 MF lens stuck to the canon 50mm front to front

• Piece of paper to reflect up some light under the subject, otherwise it'll be totally black

• Lumiquest pocket bouncer (not a necessity but it's convenient)

• Plastic bag coming with a Chinese delivery diner

Pocket bouncer mounted on the flash which is in turn mounted on the camera:

This is what the business end looks like (what your potential alien will see coming at it that is, I wonder what it would look like with faceted eyes, a few dozen clouds perhaps?).

You can see how I've wrapped one end of the bag around the lens and taped it down. That will enhance lighting:

Side view:

Close up of the lenses, you can clearly see how the lenses are taped together. I've focused so that both lenses extend the most and get plenty of area to stick some tape on it. It's pretty solid. Even if the nikkor should fall off it doesn't really matter, it's a cheap lens and it's much better build than the plastic canon.

The Nikkor is set to wide open, otherwise it'll vignette a lot more. I have an EF-S focusing screen that allows a better representation of the DOF to be seen through the viewfinder. I can pinpoint exactly where the DOF will be.

Some test shots, full frame downsized. The vignetting isn't really that objectionable to me: