Mandrake said
Hello Mick.  It's nice to have you back.
I'm a bit confused about why it was necessary to use such small apertures requiring these high ISOs.
And..... In the first and last images... Are these, animal, vegetable, or mineral.  (An old 20 questions thing.)
And..... What IS going on in the third image???

Would love to see what the lens is capable of at much closer distances.

In the macro world depth of field is only an inch at even f 16. so smaller apertures are very common. Mick has managed to get the subject sharp from front to back and that's because of the apertures he used. Most of my normal lenses don't even have these f-stops

Rama

Mandrake said
Hello Mick.  It's nice to have you back.
I'm a bit confused about why it was necessary to use such small apertures requiring these high ISOs.
And..... In the first and last images... Are these, animal, vegetable, or mineral.  (An old 20 questions thing.)
And..... What IS going on in the third image???

Would love to see what the lens is capable of at much closer distances.

Why the high ISO setting and the small apertures? A number of reasons. The lighting conditions were not ideal (high ISO value), I wanted a slightly higher shutter speed, because the pictures were taken at a very short distance (high ISO value) and out of hand. The position in which I made the photos was not very stable, the pictures are taken out of hand, and I wanted to enlarge the DOF  by increasing the ISO setting to choose a smaller diafragma and work with a higher shutter speed. I hope I make my clear.

Would love to see what the lens is capable of at much closer distances.