So, I have done a fair bit of macro work in the past, but am by no means an expert macro photographer. I picked up a Laowa 100mm f/2.8 Macro. I got the EF version because it has automatic aperture and EXIF data, and the RF version does not.
The lens goes to 2x magnification, and this is my first 2:1 macro lens (though I did have a 1:1 on m4/3, but for some reason, this feels different). I learned immediately that for high magnifications on full frame, depth of field is just so incredibly shallow...almost feels like an order of magnitude difference from 1:1, even though I know it's not.
So I picked up a macro rail and just did a few test shots on some geodes. Obviously, not great art, but man...at 1.5:1 and 2:1, I basically needed to do 8 shots per turn, because near 2x, depth of field at f/5.6 (sharpest aperture for 2x...diffraction takes a huge hit beyond f/8-f/11) is around 1/8 of a mm. I also learned that when doing focus stacks like this, to start a little before you think the closest thing is in focus, as I missed the beginning on the first two shots, so I have a bit out of focus at the front. D'oh!
I also learned that this lens is VERY good. Nearly apochromatic, extremely sharp and a nice rendering.
A couple shots.
This first one is a stack of 34 images at 0.75x magnification:
This is a 31 image stack at 2x magnification:
And finally a 152 image stack at 1.4x magnification, though it still wasn't enough (I ran the lens into the table holding the geode), and there are a few stacking issues here, but I don't have the patience to fix them on a shot that isn't going to be a presentation shot anyway:
Jul 14, 2021 at 08:57 PM
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