Chasing C&C - Commercial-ish Macro Shots

[Ronza]

Received the MP-E 65mm last fornight, bit annoyed I haven't had the opportunity to seriously use it yet until now. Had a light tent setup to do some quick shots for a lens I'm selling so threw some other stuff in there and had a play with lighting tonight. No particular purpose for the shots other than to get used to the lens a lil' more but nevertheless, wouldn't mind general C&C with specific relation on whether the lighting works or not. Especially that iPod shot.


#1 - Canon EOS20D MP-E 65mm & 550EX Off Shoe ISO400 f/16 1/250s


#2 - Canon EOS20D MP-E 65mm & 550EX Off Shoe ISO400 f/10 1/250s


#3 - Canon EOS20D MP-E 65mm & 550EX Off Shoe ISO800 f/8 1/250s


#4 - Canon EOS20D MP-E 65mm & 550EX Off Shoe ISO400 f/16 1/250s

[gstark]

Good work.

But, I think you need to add more light, so that you can use a higher aperture and get greater DoF in these.

Each of the first three look to me as if the DoF is too shallow for the subject.

For instance, I would like to see pretty much the whole of the grille on the earbud ti be crisp, likewise, probably the whole of the IC in #2. In that image, it's really not clear to me if the IC or its connections are the subject, though, and thus it either needs greater DoF (IC) or less (connections) to help focus the viewer's attention on the point that your image is trying to make.

The third one - it's almost there ... but I think that the "C" on the "DC" sections needs to be in focus. What I'm seeing is that there are a number of components that are being described in this lens's badging, and an image such as this would either highlight all of them, or it would highlight just one by isolating it, and the rest would be OOF. In this case, I would look to throw the focus a millimeter back towards the right, actiually) so that that whole of the "DC" was in clear focus (you curently have the 6 plus the space, plus the D as your focus plane. Also the 10, actually - there's a band running diagonally across the image that shows your focus plane.

What you're attempting to do here could actually benefit from the use of a PC lens, btw, but that's another couple of thousand dollars.

The easiest way out is to dial up the light, and dial in more DoF.

[MHD]

I agree with gary on all but the first image... I like the first image as it is dynamic and the shallow DOF works with that...

As for the rest they are nice shots, but if you say they are commerical (against artistic) there is one thing I have learnt and that is that stock companies (the people most likely interested in these shots) do not like shallow DOF..