final nail in the coffin for me a93

circata hey. my wing was only 20 times smaller than yours 🤔 the wing frame on my shot was the size of a human hair. 😁

1/20th the size of a human hair

not even disscussing this any more GB as no one here has any experience shooting macro, its just wasting my time. you havent mentioned once the about how small light particals, are. you keep refering to normal lens, thats ok extreme macro is a specialist field. when anyone can post images like mine i will listern, other wise its a merry go round.

For some light relief from the on-going bombastic posts in this benighted thread, I asked AI:

• Is it possible to show a linear cross-section showing the light path from the object to the sensor?*

LOL:

Hilarious!

"macro" - where the object to image plane magnification is at least 1:1, such a shot commonly being called a "macro shot" by everybody but @DonaldB

Up-thread you said your macro shots have an FOV that ranges from 2mm to 8mm. As should be obvious from the millimeter markings, the FOV of my shot is a smidge over 4mm (a tiny portion of the wing); and the cilia in the shot are certainly MUCH smaller than a human hair. This is all beside the point anyway but typical of your usual modus operandi of sloppy comparisons, unfounded conclusions and deliberate distractions whenever the error in your "reasoning" is laid bare.

Not gonna contribute anything to this thread, I'm afraid, as the tone and way to interact is not my cup of tea... it's sad, because from time to time I think I could probably learn something from these kind of discussions. But seeing the tendencies (on both sides in this debate) to ridicule each other and the lack of respect for the skills/knowledge of the person (imagine that...) on the opposite side, I'ver certainly long given up that hope.

Here's a shot at 10X:

As I've mentioned before, I'm well aware of the shortcomings of my setup and I lack the patience to deal with some aspects and in some cases the necessary room (my wooden floor is a giant problem) to get it to a higher level. It's fun to try from time to time though.

Hi GB. Yeah, I thought you might be triggered by that last part of the quote, but I decided to include it despite the over-simplification implicit in it to avoid any accusations of taking the quote out of context. Regardless...it appears that Donald has lost patience with us macro neophytes and is moving on to the much more important topic of the size of light particals. (I'm not sure if he's talking about the green ones, the red ones or the blue ones?) 😜

so how do you think you went compared to my 10 x 🤔 i have a side by side. in fact wooden floors and equipment are the best as there is no harmonic vibrations

thanks for making an effort to draw some comparrisions. i love your work btw.

ok trivia question for everyone, why do the flies wings have hairs 🤔 i know the answer so im not answering. and i didnt even have to look it up.

lets spice the trivia up. dont give me a direct answer but 2 comparisions, not animal or insect but human made 😁🤨

may as well post an arty shot while Im at it. no more im going away in the caravan tomorrow for 2 weeks. but i might take my extreme kit it only has a foot print of 300mm x 300mm thats every thing 😁

love shooting comparrisions of common insects because they are the same throughout the world and everyone can have a go.

everyone please download and look at this. this is why im so good and know what im talking about.
sony a7iv $30 4x amscope objective no crop . look at the pixel detail its simply amazing.
big pixels rule 🤪🫣

Lighting is completely different of course. But overall, I'd say that I'm unfortunately quite far from using my lens to its potential. But as I've mentioned I know quite a few of the lacking aspects already. Just haven't been able to fix some of them. Wooden floors might be great, but not if they're not sturdy. 😅

Thank you very much! And likewise, your images are great from what I've seen. Loved the portrait and dancing images! I'll certainly try to experiment with other areas of photography as well.

I found a lens which I enjoy working with more than with my microscope objective. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a fly (it's still winter here...) but I got a strawberry and tried shooting that at 10X:

I generally prefer magnifications of 2-5X because it allows for more artistic choice (at least with my clumsy hands). At 10X everything gets too cumbersome to me, even though the detail and structures which start to appear around there are awesome. But overall I still think that's for others to explore. I certainly love to look at some of those images. John Hallmén (which is quite famous in the field) does some really awesome work balancing artistic vision and excellent quality:
flickr.com/photos/johnhallmen/albums/72157624250563088/

And another guy on flickr who is awesome in that regard:
flickr.com/photos/133210987@N03/albums/72157706995276254/

im the same 10x is just to restrictive, id love a 7.5 X 😊 i can adjust my tube length ,because i have a helical tube but it still find even reducing it back to 90 mm the 10x objective still doesnt get me to 7 x and ive been in contact with a guy that owns the mitty 7.5 and he says its not perfect edge to edge sharp. my 4 x is good ,but during this thread ive shot it at apsc crop with great results.
what camera are you useing

If memory serves me Robert OToole (who knows a lot about macro) has once mentioned that the Mitutoyo 10X almost acts like a 5X HR (the best they've got and significantly more expensive) when used at 5X with an appropriate (shorter) tube lens. I'm not sure if that is true on full frame though. I think many of the people who use microscope objectives a lot use an APS-C camera or crop mode.

I love playing around at around 4-5X:

Screw you! I won't get closer... by simple.joy, on Flickr

Better knot ask by simple.joy, on Flickr

I've got a Canon EOS R5 - I like it a lot.

I decline.

Wow, I'm so impressed.

Occasionally.

[quote="@DonaldB"]not even disscussing this any more GB as no one here has any experience shooting macro, its just wasting my time.

Light is a wave, not a particle. However, when light energy is measured, the measurements give discrete amounts, which we call photons, and can be interpreted as a particle. The likelihood of measuring that energy has quite a bit to do with the wavelength of that light (where that wavelength is a function of the "color" of the light, with "red" having about twice the wavelength as "blue", and "green" splitting the middle). In the case that the wavelength is larger than a pixel, then it becomes more likely for adjacent pixels to record the light rather than the pixel located nearest the wavelength peak, thus resulting in diffraction blurring. This is where we get the Airy Disk from, by the way.

In any case, no one here has said, or implied, that diffraction does not reduce resolution. In fact, we all acknowledge it without hesitation. What we are saying is that having more pixels will still increase resolution, albeit with less and less increase as the diffraction increases and/or pixel size shrinks (you may have heard one or more of us use the term "diminishing returns"). However, in no case does more smaller pixels result in less resolution than fewer larger pixels. So, if the photos show greater resolution from the sensor with fewer larger pixels, the cause is something other than pixel size, and it is this point -- determining what the other cause(s) may be -- that we are arguing about, whereas you are wrongly fixated on pixel size being the culprit.

If you can explain how a "normal" lens differs from a macro lens with regards to resolution, diffraction, and pixel size, please spell it out!

Imagine if Neil Armstrong would only listen to other people who had set foot on the Moon. 😟