Larger diameter close-up filter and corner image quality

gardenersassistant wrote:

RGBRGB wrote:

Yes the Hoya +4 72mm is a single-element close-up filter. So I think it won't be the right product for me. I think I'll buy a Raynox DCR-150. Can you get good results with the DCR-150 at any focal length like the DCR-250?

Yes. Until I switched to using a macro lens the year before last a Raynox 150 was my most used close-up lens for invertebrates for over 10 years. (I also had the Raynox 250, Canon 500D and 250D and the Marumi 200 and 330, but the Raynox 150 worked best for me.) I used the 150 with no problem on my bridge cameras at all focal lengths apart from the shortest focal lengths that produced vignetting.

Why did you start using a macro lens instead of a close-up filter? Which macro lens do you use for photographing insects? Do you consider the working distance enough?

I noticed that the Canon 250D does not work very well with focal lengths longer than 135mm.

I wasn't at all happy with the image quality from a Canon 250D, both the one I have now and the one I had before but sent back because I thought it was faulty (but the later one was no better).

I wasn't happy either, so I rarely used it. Now I know that it is good with a lens up to 135mm.

Did you try your Marumi 72mm on your bridge cameras? Do you think that this filter is too heavy for the zoom mechanism?

I haven't tried it. I have 52mm Marumi 200 that I tested on my bridge cameras (like the Canon 250D, I wasn't happy with the image quality). I only got the 72mm relatively recently to see how it worked on a full frame 24-240 lens which is very big, heavy and beefy. I wouldn't want to try it on one of my bridge cameras for fear of breaking the zoom mechanism

Did you like the results from the full frame lens + close-up filter?

Thanks for your help! By the way, your pictures are amazing! Do you crop your images to increase depth of field or do you use focus stacking?

I only crop for composition reasons, not deep crops to get significantly greater depth of field. [NOTE for those who care about such things. I know, you can't increase depth of field by cropping. But you can get greater depth of field for a particular scene from a cropped image than from an uncropped image covering the same scene from closer in using the same aperture. It is in this sense that I sometimes refer to this as "crop for DOF".]

I capture images of live, active insects in the field, often as they are moving around, or engaged in some activity such as grooming or wrapping prey. Focus stacking is for the most part not a practical option for my subject matter.

I get greater depth of field than most people because I use smaller apertures than most people. This results in images that are very soft and lack fine detail because of the blurring effect of diffraction. I make careful use of post processing to try to get what I can from the images and I keep my outputs small at 1300 pixels high.

Are all of your flash diffusers on your flickr albums?

A lot of them are, possibly most of them. You would need to go to my Flickr collections and in each year look at the Phototechnics collection to find them. My images/albums/collections are not indexed in any way that allows me to find them easily for you I'm afraid.

Which diffuser would you use to photograph a ladybug? I would like to avoid a strong flash reflection.

We all would. It is very difficult to avoid flash reflections on reflective surfaces. Some ladybugs/ladybirds are more reflective than others, and some of my subjects are more reflective than the worst of them. After years of trying I have given up trying to arrange lighting that produces no flash reflection on highly reflective surface. When I get flash reflections that trouble my eye I tone down the reflections in post processing, either by local adjustments to lightness and/or highlights, or by using low opacity cloning to damp down the reflections. Or I give up on the image.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge!