Jeweled flower mantis (eyes)

Creobroter gemmatus, purchased specimen.

This morning I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity.

Normally, when we travel abroad, I can't seem to choose between macro and general wildlife, therefore I always have the 80-400mm with me. Back home I pretty much only do macro, so the lens has been unused for quite a while now. And that's how I completely forgot that I also have a 1.4 extender, to be used when I need some extra range for birds.

A moment of joy and cringe, as quite obviously I can use this same extender on the 5:1 macro lens, to reach a 7:1 magnification. It only took me close to a year to connect these dots.

That said, my goal with extreme macro is not magnification for the sake of magnification. At 5:1 already, quite a few insects don't fit the frame, and then I still have a significant amount of cropping space. The only situation where I would find 7:1 useful is to zoom in on specific body parts more than I could do before.

As for image quality, more testing is needed, but it looks acceptable to me. Note that the specimen is in somewhat of a poor state. This is a stack of 50 images at step size 20 μm.

Light setup:
- The big reflection on the eye is a LED + big diffuser
- The smaller bottom shine is another LED with barn doors
- The top glow on the eye is a small backlight LED

The background is a color card. Not entirely happy with the effect, but still learning.