very informative thanks for sharing,John

I don't have any photos of my latest set-up with the concave diffusers as it is still evolving. However, here is a couple of photos of my concave diffuser prototypes, although the newer ones are slightly different, a bit better made and now slide on and off the flash heads.

Just started exploring some Macro.
Put this together with some stuff I had here.... Not as flexible as needed but may add to it

fcobb, A tiny ballhead will help significantly in terms of flexibility and adding a softbox of any sort will help with your lighting.

One useful tip people may be interested in with making macro flash brackets is that not only are small ball heads very useful - but you can screw two or more together to make a longer more flexible arm. These lock very securely and a few cheap light ball heads are much cheaper than some of these expensive macro arms, but they do the same thing.

That 's my set
added a white to reflect the light instead of flash directly to the object now

also changed between the rev. kit and sigma 150+1.4

not good at all and still thinking to improve it
but at least a light weight set

This is system I use with M4 Winberley bracket,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sdgavali/4067670628/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sdgavali/4540356398/

my tripod rig

An update.

These are my latest incarnations of my Concave diffusers and vellum paper light tent for the MT24EX and MP-E 65mm. However, the light tent in particular is likely to be changed soon. This is because as I found with my cup diffuser you have to use them for a bit a get a feel for what gets in the way in what situation, plus any other limitations/failings. Then modify them as they are a compromise between usability, and lighting efficiency.

The whole set-up

Hi Stephen,
I'm very interested in the mouldable plastic that you use for the flash housings, can you give a bit of detail please?
TIA,
Bruce

Do you have any more shots with the microscope lens?

LordV wrote:
My new "alternative " high magnification setup. A 10X microscope objective mounted on a body cap on the end of 75mm of ext tubes. The flash "snoop" is on a 430Ex flash gun.

Brian V.



Example shot- a crude focus stack.

TheBat wrote:
Hi Stephen,
I'm very interested in the mouldable plastic that you use for the flash housings, can you give a bit of detail please?
TIA,
Bruce

Hi Bruce

The material is called Polymorph. Just Google "polymorph plastic" to find suppliers. Below is a video of it being used and if you enter polymorph into a search on You Tube you will get quite a lot of videos showing its uses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfcBWnOqr6s

Thanks Stephen,
I will get hold of some.
I have been using Nikon speedlite difusers and cutting them up with dremel tools for the square base sections but the plastic is too brittle and snaps very easily if you put any pressure on it. moulding my own bases should be far superior?
Bruce

here is mine

many different set ups here, very interesting!

My current setup is a mp-e 65mm with MT24ex using one shoe flash mount on the left flash head. Left flash is diffused with a home made diffuser, with a thin piece of packing foam for diffusion. The right has the smaller surface area with the same packing foam. Recently i added a layer of white plastic bag over each to soften the light further. I have lined the inside of the diffusers with aluminium foil to max imise light coming out the front. When i made the big new diffuser,i only needed 1/2 the flash power as it was directing light more where it was needed.

Anyway, here is a few shots, having some fun with the new 580ex i got this week.







example shot

My current setup, as per the LordV coke can diffuser:

Before buy the Canon MP-E 65mm lens I was afraid of the fact it extends a lot when at highter magnifications and how to light properly that front without a frontal flash (ie. a macro dedicated flash). This solution worked for this lens and I think could be useful for macro work in all lenses that extend.

1. The setup needs stability when the lens is short (1x) or very long (5x). That means, the flash must not "dance" when the photographer is compounding a scene
2. Needed to be a lightweight alternative the gear is already too heavy
3. Simple to mount or unmount to customize for future needs.

The use of lens tripod mount ring for a new supporting element, joined with the usual flash braket is a solution that works for this purpose, when the lens is at lower magnification is possible to place the flash in the right place according working distance:



And when this lens is fully extended is possible to place the flash near the end of it by changing the parallelogram orientation:



Captured some light spread profiles to verify where the light come from:

MP-E @ 1x


MP-E @ 3x (half extended)


MP-E @ 5x (fully extended, is needed to alter the flash head orientation, but it helps with WD)

my latest

Pics of my setup below... Tried to keep it as compact and lightweight as possible.


For the diffuser, I simply used a sqaure cut from a cardboard box, folded it around the flash to make a tube and taped it up firmly. It now just slides on an off the flash without any hassles. (Handy when changing to the 100mm with which I tend to use one of Brian's coke can diffusers, which I also have attached to a cardboard tube) I came across a plastic food container with a perfect half sphere frosted lid ($3.. bargain!), which has a very narrow lip around the edge. I cut the end off a soft drink can and the dome slips perfectly inside, with the narrow lip resting on the edge of the can. I cut about 6 slits along half the length of the can and bent them out over the outside of the cardboard tube and taped them in place. It all fitted together a little too easily . Over the hollow, cancave end of the diffuser is a thin piece of cotton wadding.

For the tent, I used a 58mm cokin P adapter which obvisouly takes about a second to screw on or off the lens for when you do or dont want the tent attached. I use three layers of thinner, but slightly more opaque tracing paper rather than vellum as I couldn't find vellum at the time I first made the tent. Each sheet is kept seperate using a small velco dot. I have since made another tent using two sheets of vellum, but it didn't diffuse as well as the original one, which I'm still using.

One thing I have noticed is that the older and tattier the tent has gotten, the better the results with it! I guess all the crinkled sections of paper are now helping to throw the light around under the tent more.

I have the flash mounted on a dodgied up bracket... the base attaches to the tripod hole on the camera and was bought as is for about $10. I then use a spigot and small ballhead from a studio lighting setup on that base. The base swings around to move the flash further out when extending the MP-E. It is very light weight and allows the flash head to be positioned right next to the end of the lens.











Examples:

Here's the latest iteration of how I have the MP-E set up and flashed. This may be a temporary step; haven't had a chance to do much actual shooting with it yet. As I post, the ambient temp is 95F...just a little too hot to get far from the A/C.

Right side: