Canon MPE-65 1x-5x macro

The canon MPE-65 f2.8 1x-5x is a dedicated macro lens.  Macro-photography was originally defined as when what you are photographing is the same size on the sensor or film plain is it actually is or larger.  As a dedicated macro lens incapable of focusing to infinity the lens takes only photos that fall into that category.  The MPE-65 takes images where the ratio of size is 1:1 to 5:1 in size (1x-5x).  The lens has an f stop range of 2.8-16 but when the magnification is increase the effective f-stop becomes significantly smaller.  According to the manual the effective f-stop can be calculated using the following equation:

Effective Aperture = (Aperture Setting) + (Aperture Setting x Magnification) 

So at x5 magnification at f16 you have an effective f stop of f96.  As a result the lens becomes incredibly light hungry as you increase the magnification.  Complicating use of this lens is the small depth of field.  At these settings you depth of field of 0.269mm.  You can see what this looks like in the last mantis portrait in this blog entry.  A third problem when using this lens is the working distance.  The lens achieves focus between ~100mm at x1 and ~40mm at x5.  When shooting live subjects this can be quite problematic.  Under the hot lights my ghost mantis livened up and would leap onto the front of the lens as i tried to achieve focus.  This of course being in exactly the wrong spot for me was the only spot where he would calm down.  This can also make lighting difficult unless you are utilizing a ring flash or canon's twin-lite flash.  Further the lens does not perform well at all with flash directly hitting the front element.  Canon does make a lens hood but must be purchased separately.

Because of the shallow depth of field a focusing rail becomes essential to get clear image.  Cheap older ones are available on ebay.  I picked up an older Minolta rail for $25 and I have no regrets.  Quite intelligently on canon's part they included a tripod mount the lens making for better balance (especially when the lens is fully extended) and allowing you to rotate sensor plain without shifting everything.  Without the mount you would have to readjust tripod placement when shifting between orientations.

I come from working originally with an EOS mount bellows and then later added the canon 100 f2.8 macro (non-L).  No regrets on that lens.  It's fantastic for the price and for most macro work will be fine.  Working with that lens and bellows in combination to get a similar magnification to the MPE-65 was nightmarish.  Working at that magnification is always difficult with the added size and awkwardness of the bellows it was prohibitive.  The MPE-65 is easier to use and provides better results.

Edit

Having used the lens on a handful more shoots there are two other things that should be mentioned.  The camera has a 6 bladed aperture that at times will show up.  It's not the best look.  The lens also has pretty serious flare issues when the flash hits the lens.  All lenses suffer when this happens but this one is on the worse end of the spectrum.

6 bladed aperture of sadness

Edit 2

Lens hood acquired! I am a firm believer lens hoods, they are almost a completely win-win item.  The hood for this lens is a bit of an odd duck.  Instead of the usual twist and click around the outside of rim of the lens, this hood screws into the filter mount.  At x5 magnification the hood does cause problems because of how close it gets to the insects but otherwise it's effective.  Unlike other lens hoods it appears to be metal.

Photo Highlight 2011

Near Schuyler

Last year was surprisingly unproductive for me.  I am having trouble photographing Nebraska with the same enthusiasm and enjoyment I found in shooting Colorado.  The sense of adventure is less and there is significantly more driving and less time spent out of the car on foot with the camera hand.  Most of the locations are stop and hop it out for a few shots because the location is smaller and less dynamic.  Further difficulties arise because much of the year Nebraska is dead and brown.  The skies can do amazing things in the winter, but often the foreground just lacks the pull I find so charming of a green vista or a tall mountain. Still some fantastic images were made this year. 

Bramble Wildlife Management Area

Platte River State Park

Near Fremont

Near Arlington

Toadstool Geologic Park

Toadstool Geologic Park

Toadstool Geologic Park

Toadstool Geologic Park

Metal Prints and Bay Photo

I am a huge fan frameless options for presenting photography.   Standouts, wood or aluminum mounts, and acrylic sandwiches are attractive and do away with mattes and frames.   Often enough perspective buyers are more concerned with matching frames to their house than complimenting the image.  To me the most appealing styling would be the aluminum floats.  Either the image is printed normally and then dry-mounted onto aluminum or printed onto the metal itself.  Then the image is then raised off the wall by recessed box or frame usually 1" in height. 

Back in college I was first introduced to the idea by a gallerist at Metro Frameworks Gallery.  There I mounted four images from Great Sand Dunes National Park for my senior thesis show.  They were epson prints dry-mounted onto aluminum and then given a protective acrylic spray coat.  They looked amazing.  When they mounted them for me, they scratched one print, noticed it, and offered to redo it free of charge for me.  The scratch would have been negligible except then when lit from overhead it showed strongly.  They redid it for me and I offered to let them keep the damaged one as an example.  To my knowledge they still have and use it.  I thoroughly enjoyed process.  The prints looked gorgeous when mounted and with a luster finish reflection was not an issue, especially when compared to what could have been done with glass at that price.  I kept this set of prints in the family.  Right now they're up at my father's place in San Francisco enjoying the bay air.

View fullsize

on display in the Great Sand Dunes Visitor Center

Lately I have been getting work done with Image Wizards and overall I am very satisfied.  The images come out looking similar in dynamic range and color to the epson prints I used to make and have strong and appealing build quality.  They use a small folded edge aluminum box to raise the print off the wall and place the usual rubber feet on the box.  For the hanger they cut one sawtooth hole for either hanging orientation.  I would prefer a way to get a wire on it but considering the size of the box on the back it makes sense.  There have been a few hiccups in the finish but the customer service fast, polite, and effective so this is of no issue.  Things are different with my experience with Bay Photo.  Currently you can find some of the prints I have made through ImageWizard for sale or on public display at Nebraska At the Market or at the Great Sand Dunes National Park visitor center.

pin striping, white wedges and dirt

I have been shopping around for a good gallery and store host.  While I like the website I have created, having an integrated store with an outsourced customer service would be amazing. SmugMug came recommended to me as well with their integrated printer Bay Photo.  When I saw that Bay Photo did metal prints, I was sold.  I started setting up a website through smugmug and ordered a set of 5 metal prints from BayPhoto for the Emerging Artist Show at the Artist's Cooperative Gallery here in downtown Omaha.  The photos arrive and they're awful.  Thin white edges adorn the corners of the images from where they didn't cut the images out of the boards strait.  One is cut a full 1/4 shorter than the others.  The prints that terrible pin striping that is the tell tale sign of a clogged nozzle on your printer.  One print had a dirt smudge in the sky under the finish.  Needless to say I wasn't happy.  When I contacted Bay Photo they did offer redo the prints for free which is what I wanted but at no point did I feel that they knew how egregious it was for this to go out the door of their shop.  Nor was there ever a real apology.  When the new set of prints arrived I was similarly dismayed.  Of the five, three came in okay.   A different one came in 3/8" shorter than the others and the fifth came in just bad.  I'm not entirely sure how or why this happened.  Time wise I was out, so I ended up only have four photos for the show open (I used the short one) and just left a space for next week when the fifth arrived redone.

Left: what they sent Right: file

As a result I am never going to BayPhoto again for printing.  Nor am I going to able to effectively use SmugMug's service (Which I ended my account as a result of this.  They were very polite and fast about the whole thing, including refunding the money for the account.)  Other photographers I have talked to are generally surprised about my experience in that it happened at all and that happened from BayPhoto.  This isn't necessarily indictive of what kind of experience you would have but it was mine.

Update December 2015

Much to my amusement and dismay the prints from Bay Photo have age horrendously.  I've had them in storage with a few from images made back in 2012 and they have all well defined curves.  I have no idea what would have done this.  I had them leaning in a climate controlled storage unit and they have curved out away from the wall.  Comparatively the ones from image wizards look good as new.  Thanks Bayphoto for the gifts that keep blowing.