[Canonian]

Hi I'm Fred a.k.a. Canonian.
Shooting DSLR only for 2 years now en stumbled upon this forum for it's great lensreviews.
To my shame I must admit I'm becoming a serious LBA lately.
Admitting helps in my support group: "Hi I'm Fred and I'm a Lens Buying Addict."

Only shooting outside for a couple of months, I mostly shoot in Studio, 90% is stacking,
Yep, that's my thing: Extreme macro: I have added my latest stack as an example:

[Nass]

Hello Fred

[Kerrowdown]

Welcome to the forum, wow that's some shot, care to give a little more info on how that's achieved, i.e. how many shots/layers it takes to make that kind of image.

Also how do you control the focus for the shots/layers at that level of magnification, it must fractions of mm. Or am I totally on the wrong planet.

[Canonian]

Thanks, Nass! Glad to have found this forum ( and ran into you this way)

Thanks kerrowdown; to answer your questions:

I use a Canon 550D mounted on a Ihagee bellows , coupled on a Ihagee copy stand.
I sometimes use PL lamps and most of the time use a DIY Power LEDring , or Ikea Jansjo LED lamps

In this case I used a JML Optical 21mm F/3.5 lens.

My subjects are mounted on a Olympus BH-MJ Focus block, capable of doing 1µm steps.
It takes an avarage of 100 shots that I render in Zerene Stacker.
Retouching the stack in Zerene, and postprocessing the result in Adobe Camera Raw and PhotoShop

That's it in a nutshell, my workflow may vary, so are my lenses and lighting.

[Kerrowdown]

Thanks for the reply, I wasn't that far off the mark with my thought process.

I guess the bugs dead or frozen or something, at that magnification even if it were breathing it would muck up the sharpness.

[Canonian]

Yes kerrowdown, it was frozen to kill it (I was told this is the most "humane" way of killing bugs) and prepared.
I forgot to add a picture of my "Macroscope", this setup is a result of 2 years of browsing auctionsites.
I'm very happy with how it is in this state , but it is ever evolving.
The Stereoscope on the right is an old Olympus, where I prepare and stage the bugs.
The computer on the left is linked to the camera to get a better view when focussing.

[Kerrowdown]

Thanks for sharing this, the equipment set up looks just as amazing as the finished images.