state of the art lenses

[Eddy Clerx]

For those who cannot effort or do not want to spend to much money on the nice but expensive lenses like the 65mm canon or nikkor lenses, some alternative suggestions. Although I have some of these nice toys at my disposal I prefer the use of the cheap stuff. The biggest advantage is the better contrast and charpness (less glass) but just as important is the size and weight of that stuff:. These alternatives are small and gives you more abillity for soft front-lighting your beautiful wasps. (soft lighting is crucial for hotspots kills your stack)
g.e.
EL nikkor 50mm f/2,8 or even nicer the schneider compononS 50mm f/2,8 . These can be cheeply purchased on ebay . Wideangle 28mm lenses are common used whit great results. They must be reverse mounted on a bellows. These lense gives you the advantage of enlargment up to 5x very sharp high contrast, low budget shots.
The fixed distance (finit) microscopic lenses 160mm or 210mm 1x, 2x, 5x or 10x are old lenses which gives very fine results. But these are harder to get. g.e. the nikon M plan or BD plan ELWD lenses are great!

Zerestacker is my tool to "glue" the shots together and it has a buildin retouch tool.

http://www.photomacrography.net/ and please check this stunning website of a pioneer http://www.krebsmicro.com/