# Few questions to Zeiss 100 makro lens owners



## Perio (Oct 23, 2015)

Hi guys! I use Canon 70D with 100 2.8L macro lens in the dental clinic taking close-up photographs of my patient's teeth and gingiva. Everything works just fine, but I'm thinking about getting Zeiss 100 makro lens hoping to get more accurate colors, especially red color (which is important for clinicians). I use only manual focus, and usually I focus by moving the camera back and forth and not by rotating focus ring (to keep the same magnification all the time).

So, I have a few questions to people who own Zeiss 100 makro lens. 
1. Would I have focus confirmation with the way I focus?
2. I know it's has 1:2 magnification. I did my research but unfortunately I still cannot clearly understand what that means (silly me!). Does it mean that it acts like a 50mm lens and I'd need to come closer to my patients to capture the same area?
3. What would be a good adapter to use with Canon MR-14EX II Macro Ring? I couldn't find an answer.
4. Is there any other macro lens you'd recommend to get natural colors? My preferred focal length is 100mm on crop bodies and 160-180mm on FF bodies. 
Thank you for your time!


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## privatebydesign (Oct 23, 2015)

Your issue has nothing to do with the lens you use. Buy a color checker and make a camera profile and white balance for your camera and flash and all your reds will be perfect.

But I already told you that in a previous post.


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## Perio (Oct 23, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> Your issue has nothing to do with the lens you use. Buy a color checker and make a camera profile and white balance for your camera and flash and all your reds will be perfect.
> 
> But I already told you that in a previous post.



I have a color checker, but I cannot photograph it inside of the mouth to create a profile later.


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## privatebydesign (Oct 23, 2015)

Perio said:


> privatebydesign said:
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> > Your issue has nothing to do with the lens you use. Buy a color checker and make a camera profile and white balance for your camera and flash and all your reds will be perfect.
> ...



You don't need to. You just need to make your profile using the same light, lens and camera, the profile will be good where ever you then use that same light, camera and lens combination, in a mouth, on the moon, in a cave, it is all the same, just so long as the ambient light is not making a noticeable percentage of the exposure you can make your profile anywhere.


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## Perio (Oct 23, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> Perio said:
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Ok, thanks! I probably misunderstood you last time.


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## Zeidora (Oct 23, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> Perio said:
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Sorry, not quite. The internal reflection of the colored mouth surface will cause a color shift. If OP only images the external surfaces of the teeth/gums, then an external calibration will work. However, I assume OP also needs to take internal images.
However, is full profiling important? if you can get something black and white inside the mouth, then you can do a pretty decent color balance by using Photoshop curves and use the black and white eye droppers to define white and black points. I then usually go into each channel and go back about ten points to get a bit less highlight/shadow clipping. 

Re 1:1 vs 1:2, on FF 1:1 smallest area you can take an image of is 24 x 36 mm, at 1:2 it is 48 x 72 mm. You can use extension rings to go closer = image smaller area.

I don't think the Zeiss lens will make much difference for color accuracy in your case. However, the makroplanar has no visible lateral color (yellow/blue color fringes at edges with strong brightness difference). I only have the Canon 180 macro, and it has some lateral color, but cannot say how the Canon 100M fares. 

Re flash-attachment, I assume it is similar to the MT 24. In that case, you only need an adapter ring, that screws into the front filter thread.

Focus confirm works at least on 5D2 and 5DsR. As far as I know, focus confirm works with pretty much any MF lens on any body.


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## privatebydesign (Oct 23, 2015)

Zeidora said:


> privatebydesign said:
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I wondered how long it would take somebody to say that, in this case it is bullshit. In this instance the specifics are using an MR-14EXII, a low powered ring light that will rely virtually 100% on direct light from the flash tubes for the exposure, reflected light will make up a tiny fraction of any illuminant and so any colour cast will be negligible. 

I guarantee the OP will be much happier with his reds after making his custom profile.

You ask if full profiling is important, for Canon cameras red is far and away the most problematic channel and seeing as how the OP needs accurate reds then yes, full profiling is the very first and most basic step in achieving that.

If accurate colour is important custom camera profiles are a must, as is monitor calibration.


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## mb66energy (Oct 23, 2015)

I had a similar problem with undifferenciated reds in poppy flowers and other red object. Two procedures I use as countermeasure - maybe the color "fidelity" is reduced a little bit but I see more information. 

1) The DxO Software has a feature to protect oversaturated colors automatically (or using a single slider). This gave much more structure/texture of the leaves/objects. (with 600D, EOS M).
In DPP I would shift reds into the green direction (opposite to images in lush forests) and try with a lower Kelvin value in white balance to bring down the max. red values.

2) The original 5D has much better color reproduction especially in the red compared to 600D and EOS M. If you have access to that camera body I would give it a try.


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## Zeidora (Oct 23, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> Zeidora said:
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Two assumptions: set-up gives good color results for normal photography. Color has problems when shooting internal mouth cavity. OP: please clarify if any of that is not true.

If those two implicit assumptions hold, then there is some factor that shifts color when photographing inside mouth. The main suspect is the colored environment. Color *shifts* are not the same as flash covered with color gel for arty effects. That colored surfaces cause color shifts is an absolute no-brainer, particularly in a moist environment where liquid causes all sorts of reflections. Cross polarization may help then, but given non-neutral nature of pols, then you certainly have to profile that set-up. Not sure whether a pol (donut-type) exists for that flash. The old OM ring flash had one available, though never used it. I have done cross polarization shots.


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## NancyP (Oct 24, 2015)

Given the problem, you want to do as much as possible outside the oral cavity. But if you had a pure white lozenge, or surface taped to a dental mirror, you might be able to check your assumption concerning color balance. Use swatches for choosing porcelain cap color? Although no-one has white teeth, so I don't know if they have a reference true white in the swatch book.


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## privatebydesign (Oct 24, 2015)

Zeidora said:


> privatebydesign said:
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You are over thinking the small details and ignoring the massive one. No camera will give important and accurate colour reproduction without a custom profile.

Even if there is still a colour cast the profile has to be done first, then any cast can be worked on. But, I suspect as soon as Perio actually starts working with a custom profile he will be more than happy with the output accuracy, Canon reds are problematic and can only be mitigated by starting with a camera profile. Direct flash, as he is using, is not prone to colour casts and the amount of light bouncing around the mouth that actually registers in the exposure is minimal, hence any colour cast will be minimal.


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## Perio (Oct 25, 2015)

Thank you all guys for your input. I don't care about the tooth color. I'm concerned about the color of the gingiva, especially during the periodontal surgeries when it bleeds, and after surgeries when the gingiva become bluish. I was actually told in the beginning of my program to use Nikon, since Nikon's red is apparently better than that of Canon... At some point I was thinking about Sony, since manual focusing is apparently easier on Sony's camera's and I need only manual focusing. And maybe it is silly, but sometimes flash doesn't work during few shots (batteries, etc), and when I try to recover the image, usually it remains underexposed or looks unnatural. Would Sony give me better recovery. Too many thoughts....

Apart from the color rendition, do you guys think Zeiss 100 makro would give me any advantages in terms of focusing, focus confirmation etc?


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## privatebydesign (Oct 25, 2015)

Perio said:


> Thank you all guys for your input. I don't care about the tooth color. I'm concerned about the color of the gingiva, especially during the periodontal surgeries when it bleeds, and after surgeries when the gingiva become bluish. I was actually told in the beginning of my program to use Nikon, since Nikon's red is apparently better than that of Canon... At some point I was thinking about Sony, since manual focusing is apparently easier on Sony's camera's and I need only manual focusing. And maybe it is silly, but sometimes flash doesn't work during few shots (batteries, etc), and when I try to recover the image, usually it remains underexposed or looks unnatural. Would Sony give me better recovery. Too many thoughts....
> 
> Apart from the color rendition, do you guys think Zeiss 100 makro would give me any advantages in terms of focusing, focus confirmation etc?



Anybody that says Nikon reds are 'better' simply doesn't understand how digital cameras work. If colour accuracy is important the only option is profiling, sorry to keep banging on about this but it is as basic and important a first step as is possible. 

Make a profile, set that profile to be applied on import, done.

The Ziess lens will make no obvious difference to your images, it won't be easier or more difficult to focus either. Get one if you want one, but a different lens, or camera, is not the answer to your gingiva colour reproduction needs.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Oct 25, 2015)

Perio said:


> Thank you all guys for your input. I don't care about the tooth color. I'm concerned about the color of the gingiva, especially during the periodontal surgeries when it bleeds, and after surgeries when the gingiva become bluish. I was actually told in the beginning of my program to use Nikon, since Nikon's red is apparently better than that of Canon... At some point I was thinking about Sony, since manual focusing is apparently easier on Sony's camera's and I need only manual focusing. And maybe it is silly, but sometimes flash doesn't work during few shots (batteries, etc), and when I try to recover the image, usually it remains underexposed or looks unnatural. Would Sony give me better recovery. Too many thoughts....
> 
> Apart from the color rendition, do you guys think Zeiss 100 makro would give me any advantages in terms of focusing, focus confirmation etc?



A manual focus lens will be much easier to manually focus, but why not get a 5D MK III? The reds are better, use spot AF and forget all the work of manually focusing a camera. I've been to my Dentist many times as well as different ones. They are happy with AF.

I wonder if you are going in the wrong direction, and wanting to spend a lot of money with little visible results.

Do you take jpeg images like most dentists do? You have the ability to adjust colors in camera. If you use Raws, then a color calibration will give you accurate colors, but you may find that's still not what you want.

I'd suggest editing a photo in lightroom to get the reds and other colors correct as you see them, then set those settings as a user preset and apply them automatically to imported images. That way, you get colors as they appear to you without any fooling around with external calibrators. The same adjustments will be applied to each photo you import. Try that first!


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## Perio (Oct 25, 2015)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> Perio said:
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> > Thank you all guys for your input. I don't care about the tooth color. I'm concerned about the color of the gingiva, especially during the periodontal surgeries when it bleeds, and after surgeries when the gingiva become bluish. I was actually told in the beginning of my program to use Nikon, since Nikon's red is apparently better than that of Canon... At some point I was thinking about Sony, since manual focusing is apparently easier on Sony's camera's and I need only manual focusing. And maybe it is silly, but sometimes flash doesn't work during few shots (batteries, etc), and when I try to recover the image, usually it remains underexposed or looks unnatural. Would Sony give me better recovery. Too many thoughts....
> ...



Most of my co-resident take jpegs, but I take RAW images only and it makes a huge difference during "post-processing". I used to use original 5d with 100L but since it's FF, I had to come too close to a patient. If I stayed with FF, I'd have to pick up something like 180L, but it's 500g heavier than 100L. During 4-hour surgery when you take photographs with only one had (another hand holds a mirror), this extra weight is the last thing I want to think about....

Regarding AF... I used to use AF at the beginning of my training, but then the distance to the subject is different all the time. When I crop the images, I want to have teeth, gingiva etc. the same size. I guess if I use AF and crop later on, intraoral structures will have a different size. Your regular general dentist is a completely different game.

Thank you all, guys! I'll follow your suggestions and create a color profile using my color checker. I learn so much from you!


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