Brian,
Thanks for the complement and the correct name  I was too lazy to get out my field guide of British insects.
How do you get on with a 60mm f/l with respect to getting close to the subject? With a longer lens you can stand off more, particularly useful with some insects that see you coming.
Have you any link to some of your results?
If I bought a macro lens, I'm thinking 100 mm plus would seem to be better option.
Terry

The lens used was a Canon EF 70-300 mm/f4.5-5.6 DO IS USM on a Canon 350D with a 8.0 Mpx sensor.

At 300 mm it certainly is; I've not calculated it but the reproduction ratio is close to 1:1. Using a +4D supplementary lens would enable this at a shorter focal length. However the simple supplementary lenses I have at present do produce chromatic aberrations, especially the +4D.

Terry.

The e-mails I get have the text of the post 
If you go to the forum, at the very top of the page there's a link which says "show unread posts since last visit", that's very helpful to check the topics that are active.
Terry.

Years ago I did a lot of macro photography using bellows, reversed standard lens and special flash set-ups and often brought my insect subjects indoors.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with freehand macro without having to spend much money on special lenses or equipment.
For some time I’ve used supplementary lenses as a cheap way to get close to subjects and recently I’ve tried it out using my 70-300 mm stabilised lens and a +2D simple single element supplementary lens. The long telephoto has the advantage of being able to keep a reasonable distance from the subject and not frightening it away. I have found that using a focal length of between 100 & 150 mm is the easiest to handle but have had a little success at 300 mm.
Here is an available light shot at 105 mm and f8; the dragon fly is about 35 mm long.

With available light it is difficult to get a small aperture for good depth of field so I tried using an ordinary flash gun mounted on the camera; I used the built-in diffuser. The camera was set on manual with an aperture of f22. Here are two shots at 165 mm and 300 mm. The Capsid bug is about 10 mm long.


I may buy the Canon 2-element coated +2D supplementary lens hoping that the quality will be improved.
Just thought I’d share this experience  
Terry.

I should have added: RAW files do always have a decent jpeg embedded within them, at least half size. You don't have to select raw+ jpeg on your camera to get it, just raw is sufficient.
Qimage SE can extract this embedded jpeg with just a (right) click with images in the queue. It provides an immediate comparison with your raw image 
Terry.

With Qimage SE raw processing not only can you go for the quick "smart" (better than auto) processing, you have the quick refine and no conversion, just print from raw.
Maybe that what you meant anyway?
Terry.

I always use Epson inks with my R800; I buy them on-line of course to save some money.
My experience with non-Epson inks is similar to others, they clog the printer. With my old printer, I always had my cartridges re-filled at a local Cartridge World shop but within a year the printer was unusable.

Printers (A4 & A3) themselves seem to be relatively cheap for what they are and I have been told the high prices manufacturers charge for their inks compensates for this - the printer is a sort of loss leader. However, I don't really believe Epson Canon etc. plan not to make money on their printers.
I wonder what the cost of ink is per ml for the big pro printers that do cost a lot of money, are you Pro's being fleeced too?

Terry.

Hi,
I was me who suggested using the cutout approach.
I have uploaded the cutout image to my Pbase gallery here http://www.pbase.com/tjm04/image/113679381
The 2 ovals represent the max & min positions for the top of the head and the chin. with a print size of 45x35 mm.
You should download the official guidelines from gov.uk if not you've already done so.
Link: http://www.ips.gov.uk/passport/downloads/photos.pdf

When you use the cutout, it's necessary to set the filter crop to the 45 - 35 ratio and adjust its size and position so that the image fits the cutout template. When done, delete the cutout from the filter before printing.

I made a template for an A4 page of passport photos

Terry.

Edit: there is some more guidance here; http://www.ips.gov.uk/passport/guidelines-photos-professional.asp

Hi Lynn,
I suggest you check your preference settings, maybe auto job logging got turned off for some reason.
Edit menu, Preferences, Job Logging.

Terry.

Hi,
I too have an Epson R800, now 3 years old, and have been very pleased with it. I regularly print 6x4's borderless without any problems.
Terry.

Just to add why I was prompted to ask this - someone the Yahoo forum asked about floating text on e-mail copies
To achieve this, you have to use Print To File so to make it a little easier to size the PTF e-mail copy, a readout of the image pixel size on the PTF dialogue would be a help.
Terry.

I can actually use both but for a simple soul like me, whole numbers of mm are easier than 3 decimal places in inches.
British Thermal Units are my favourites, useful in a cold Winter.

BTW you got it wrong,  it's mm please, M is for metres = 39.370079 inches
Terry.

Fred,
Because I use metric units, it's more difficult (calculator needed) to set the dimensions and resolution to get a specific pixel size.
Just looking to make this process easier at the initial stage rather than having to check in the print-save dialogue where the pixel size is given.
Edit: just to be clear I want to see 680x480 pixels, or whatever the page size & resolution result in.
Terry

Mike,
Would it be possible to show the PTF image pixel size in the PTF dialogue when the page size and resolution are entered? I know this is shown when you "print" and save the image but it would be nice to get an earlier indication of this.
Terry.

I don't think you can edit a non-PP profile in PP because you have to open the scanned target image to make edits.
If you have the full Eye-One kit which does printer profiles, there is an editor module for the software: "Eye-One Editor Module
Fine-tune your profiles with the Eye-One Editor module"

Qimage does have a "Selective Color" feature in its Batch Filter that can be used to make corrections; the resulting filter would be then used as a Print Filter.
Terry.