Canon MPE-65 mm repair or replace with something else

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davholla

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I have had a quote of £460+VAT to repair my lens or £530+vat - Repair and Full Service.
(I am looking for another quote for any Americans that is USD 848).
However I thought should I look for an alternative as well whilst waiting for my lens to come back from the company that gave me this large quote, as it is quite heavy to use, worse than my Tamron 150-600 lens and I have shoulder problems which make this to be a pain.

I found this website http://extreme-macro.co.uk/raynox-adapter-techniques/
I have this lens and with a Canon 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 plus an adapter I could get very good magnification 5.05:1 and with a longer working distance than my MPE65.
However I think there is a flaw with my calculations, any ideas? If it were that easy and cheap everything would have done it.
I have masses of photos to look through from my Colombia trip so there is no real urgency, saying that I love it. I googled this combination but no joy.

If anyone has a really clever alternative, please let me know.
 
Why don't you drop Brian Valentine ( Lord V) an email and ask ,if anyone knows he will.
 
davholla said:
I have had a quote of £460+VAT to repair my lens or £530+vat - Repair and Full Service.
(I am looking for another quote for any Americans that is USD 848).
However I thought should I look for an alternative as well whilst waiting for my lens to come back from the company that gave me this large quote, as it is quite heavy to use, worse than my Tamron 150-600 lens and I have shoulder problems which make this to be a pain.

I found this website http://extreme-macro.co.uk/raynox-adapter-techniques/
I have this lens and with a Canon 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 plus an adapter I could get very good magnification 5.05:1 and with a longer working distance than my MPE65.
However I think there is a flaw with my calculations, any ideas? If it were that easy and cheap everything would have done it.
I have masses of photos to look through from my Colombia trip so there is no real urgency, saying that I love it. I googled this combination but no joy.

If anyone has a really clever alternative, please let me know.
Click to expand...

With a Raynox 250 on a 55-250 on my APS-C 70D I get a minimum scene width of around 12mm, which is around 2:1. 5:1 would be a scene width of around 4.5mm. With two 250s stacked I get down to about 6mm. With a Raynox MSN-202 I get a minimum scene width of around 4mm. The working distance is around 35mm. (Live view autofocus works on the 70D at that magnification btw. That is Canon's dual pixel autofocus. Not as good as autofocus on my Panasonics, but not too bad.)
 
Thinking of weight, I wonder what magnification you would get with extension tubes and a Raynox on your 60mm EF-S? I get around 6.5mm with 60mm extension tubes and a Raynox 250 on my Sigma 105 macro and about 3.5mm with the Raynox MSN-202 and extension tubes. That's horribly heavy because of the Sigma 105 at 726 grams, but the EF-S 60mm macro is 335 grams. The MPE-65 is 710 grams, about the same as the Sigma 105, but in comparing the MPE065 to the 60mm macro you would need to add the weight of extension tubes and a close-up lens.

I don't imagine you are in the business of moving to completely different kit, so this is more of an aside than anything else, but I think the best combination of high magnification, low weight and decent image quality that I have amongst my various kit is my G80 with 45-175 lens and Raynox MSN-202. With battery (but excluding the flash) this rig is around 800g. It covers scene widths from around 15mm to around 4.5mm. It also has some rather nice (to my way of thinking) operating characteristics (but a constant and rather short 30mm working distance across those magnifications), but presumably this is not the place to veer off into that.
 
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GardenersHelper said:
Thinking of weight, I wonder what magnification you would get with extension tubes and a Raynox on your 60mm EF-S? I get around 6.5mm with 60mm extension tubes and a Raynox 250 on my Sigma 105 macro and about 3.5mm with the Raynox MSN-202 and extension tubes. That's horribly heavy because of the Sigma 105 at 726 grams, but the EF-S 60mm macro is 335 grams. The MPE-65 is 710 grams, about the same as the Sigma 105, but in comparing the MPE065 to the 60mm macro you would need to add the weight of extension tubes and a close-up lens.

I don't imagine you are in the business of moving to completely different kit, so this is more of an aside than anything else, but I think the best combination of high magnification, low weight and decent image quality that I have amongst my various kit is my G80 with 45-175 lens and Raynox MSN-202. With battery (but excluding the flash) this rig is around 800g. It covers scene widths from around 15mm to around 4.5mm. It also has some rather nice (to my way of thinking) operating characteristics (but a constant and rather short 30mm working distance across those magnifications), but presumably this is not the place to veer off into that.
Click to expand...

Changing kit could be a good idea but it is too much time, money and hassle. If I came into a lot of money (I have other calls on my purse) I would probably consider it.
Thanks for that. I have now 2 quotes

1) £120 all in

2) £85 labour (at least) plus vat plus parts

I think (1) is going to be cheaper
 
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