Filming macro with Canon MP-E 65mm

[AndreasOberg]

Hiya,
Spending some time in the desert and we find so many tiny flowers and spikes that we just want to film.
We have the canon MP-E 65mm which is awesome, but have not figured out the best way to film with it.

A few challenges:
1. How to use tripod/slider to position yourself correctly? So far the best results I got by lifting up what I shot and put it on a stone or table. Most of the time the camera need to be on the ground extremely close to the subject.

2. How to focus? Since the lens has no focus wheel, you need to move the camera. Very tricky especially if the subject is moving around. Ideally one would have focus rail or maybe a slider, but the ones I find for photography seem underpowered.

3. Sliding with macro would be great. Are there any solutions that has precision enough for this? Could be motor controlled.
One variation of this could be to instead of sliding the camera you slide or rotate the subject. For example put a little leaf of flower on a rotating disk or something that is moving back and forward. This will of course not work on wild insects but should work good on plants. Any ideas what would be a good tool for these movements?

Any thoughts would be welcome!
Andreas

 

[Martin Konrad]

For a macro slider I use the Cognisys Stackshot system. It's a 20cm rail with controller for photo stacking, but it has a continuous mode so you get up to 20cm of travel. It works perfectly on jewelry and watches even with a rigged Red but the travel is slow due to the gears, not so sure for live action.

 

[AndreasOberg]

That seems like a great stackshot system, I remember looking at them before. But yes I would not think they would work so great for video, right?

One slider I looked at is this one https://edelkrone.com/products/sliderone-v2
The Slider One Pro v2 slider can supposedly take 13.6kg horizontally and 4.5kg vertically. If you do not put the batteries on camera you should be able to get below 4.5kg, but I guess it is mostly the horizontal one would need.

Of course how it works in practice I do not know