www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I use a Sigma 105mm macro on my Sony a700 DSLR to photograph butterflies, but I want to get much more magnification than is possible with this set-up.

I want to get ultra close-up shots of individual eggs, newly emerged larvae, and anatomical close ups of adults ( eyes, wing details etc ).

I don't want to use extension tubes or teleconverters because I don't want dust to get in onto the sensor which is likely to happen if I regularly remove the Sigma from the camera in the field.

I need a good quality screw-in or clip-on attachment that will fit on the front of my Sigma 105mm macro.

Raynox make various models but I'm not sure which one would provide the right amount of magnification, or whether it would work successfully in combination with my Sigma 105mm.

Any advice would be appreciated, and any ( uncropped ) images to demonstrate the sort of magnification and resolution I could expect would be very useful indeed.

Many thanks
Adrian
.

Hya Adrian
For me personally, i would use extension tubes, and try to be careful when changing in the field. The car, or somewhere sheltered. This fear of getting a speck on the sensor seems so irrational to me, and sort of diminishes the whole point of interchangeable lenses. I hate putting extra glass on the front of a lens, as this will take away a little bit of the quality we all strive for. The tubes have no glass, and the only issue is depth of field depending on the size of the tube, which may mean stopping down the lens a bit, and/or upping the ISO a bit. Also lighting will become an issue, and a macro lighting kit might be required. I know others on here may advocate close up attachments, this is just the way i would go.
Cheers

hi adrian,

ive been using raynox lenses for a couple of years now and its one of the reasons ive not bothered to invest in a dedicated macro lens for my dslr at the moment as i feel ive still not fully explored their benefits yet.
i mainly use them in conjunction with my prosumer panasonic fz-50 and in the higher magnification range of the lens. i have a raynox dcr-150 and a higher magnification 250.
the 150 for small butterflys allows me to take reasonable macro images of the whole butterfly at a distance of about 7 to10 inches from lens face were as the 250 works at much shorter distances of 3 to 4 inches away and of much smaller objects to the size of pin head say with good magnification.
but the biggest bonus i find of all is the flexability and practicality of the universal mount system that allows the lens to be very quickly placed on the front of any lens you want to use with a telephoto or zoom range capability 35mm and above with an objective lens between 52 and 67mm.
below 35mm and you will have the lens mount in the frame.
if you have a look on flicker you will see whole groups dedicated to raynox with some superb images.
you could also have a look on http://www.raynox.com which will show you pics of the universal mount and give more technical details than i can.
below are some examples of pics ive taken with my lenses some are cropped from ultimate size in photo shop quite heavily but still retain good detail, no doubt in conjunction with a dedicated macro lens you could produce more impressive results.
the other benefit is the low cost as you should be able to pic up the lens and mount for around 40 pounds.

gary.

Very impressive Gary, but I wonder if the predated caterpillar might actually be the Holly Blue, seeing that it's on the flowers of Ling, which is often used as a foodplant by the second generation in heathy districts.

Misha

mmmm,

thats an interesting suggestion misha.
i was with phil budd at the time who knows his stuff and identified it as small copper, we also didn't see any holly blue around but there were several small copper on the locality on beaulieu heath that day in the summer.
as the two cats are very similar structually its down to colour and markings, but ive just read up in several places that as you suggest the caterpillers of holly blue are very variable and sometimes display pink areas, that said the markings do follow very closely those of small copper.
does any one else have some input on this question?

cheers misha. gary.

Hi all

Thanks for the images Gary which are very useful and sufficient to convince me that I should get the 250 Raynox. Thanks also for directing me to the Flickr photos, those dramatic close-ups of flies eyes look pretty sharp to me ! Using a Raynox makes more sense to me than using tubes or teleconverter for several reasons - converters and tubes both cause a significant darkening of the viewfinder image making focusing that much harder; they are both quite expensive; both are slower to attach and remove than a Raynox; and then there is the dust on the sensor problem - if I'm shooting butterflies on a sandbank on the Amazon ( or even on a sandy bit of British heathland ) I don't want to risk getting the sensor mucky and then find that all subsequent shots are ruined or need hours of cloning in Photoshop to get rid of the marks. So I'll continue to use my Sigma 105 macro for adult butterflies, and attach a Raynox 250 when I need to shoot an egg or anatomical detail.

Thanks also to Misha and Zonda for your input, much appreciated.

By the way some of those makeshift flash diffusers shown on the Flickr pages look ingenious. I normally use a Sony macro twin flash for my butterfly photos ( though I prefer daylight when possible ), but a hotshoe flash and a paper bag seems to produce equally good results !

All the best
Adrian