I've taken some super macro photos of a pollen stamen before, but that was before I owned the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro lens.

This lens is a serious macro lens, and no other lens out there comes close to what it can do - which is to magnify things up to 5 times life size. Most true macro lenses will magnify up to life size (or 1:1), but the MP-E 65 can go way beyond that, allowing for magnification from life size (1:1) up to 5 times life size (5:1). I will get into more detail about that at a later date when I do a more thorough write-up of the lens, but for now that means you get to see what individual grains of pollen look like....

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro, 1/250 sec at f/16. Canon Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX in ETTL mode. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

Unfortunately, I did not record what magnification that shot was taken at, and I haven't figured out how to determine that after the fact yet. Regardless, that's still a highly magnified view of pollen - my guess is somewhere between 3-5x life size (probably closer to 5).

Stay tuned for more super macro photos...

- Bill