Saturday, July 14, 2012

Digital Macro Photography

By Steve Campbell


Digital macro photography or close-up photography is a specialized branch of picture taking involved with magnifying subjects and focusing within a couple of inches of them. Macro lenses were developed to help SLR (single-lens-reflex) cameras to handle this close focus function.

Some modern zoom lenses have macro settings that allow for some limited close-up focusing. Extension rings or simple close-up lenses can also attach to a normal lens to allow close-ups. However, for true full size magnification a dedicated macro lens is the best option for digital macro photography.

Macro lenses generally are more costly than normal zoom lenses for example and tend to be slower than normal lenses which has a minimum aperture around f4.0. However, they can be stopped down to around f32. These lenses can also be used for normal photography and are not limited to just close up photography.

A special mount is used within these lenses to allow them to rack out to around an inch for close focus with continuous focus from infinity to just a few inches. The outcome is good quality very sharp distortion free images. The only real disadvantage of macro lenses is the cost.

Close-up attachments act like filters and can be screwed onto the front of a standard lens. The strength of a close-up attached is measured in diopters. This indicates how close you could focus in factions of a meter. A +1 diopter allows you to focus down to 1000mm, while a +2 is 500mm and a +3 is 333mm. The beauty of diopters is that they can easily be combined to extend magnification. However, be wary of using too many diopters as this could lead to vignetting and poor image quality.

If you are on a limited budget then a lens converter could be the answer at a faction of the cost of a macro lens. These converters effectively doubled or triple the focal length of a standard lens. There's some exposure loss but result are favorable for the price paid compare to a macro lens.

Digital macro photography is definitely a fascinating topic area and examples include, photographing stamps, coins, models, plants, flowers, leavers, insects, butterflies, snow, ice, water, and fabric.




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