question about macros

Jenn

Hiii ... everyone. I was wondering if you all could help me decide what sort of camera / lense(s) to get so I can concentrate on taking macro photos? My current camera can only do limited macro shots, and as I've learned more about photography I've really begun to lean towards having a real love for macro photography.

Don't laugh too hard, but I looked on the Walmart.com website at dslr cameras and haven't a clue what I should be looking for? I want a camera that is digital that has the capacity for taking normal photographs with a normal lense, but I'd like to be able to swap to a macro lense that can take photos of the many facets of a bugs eye. LOL Make an ant look like a giant...

Anyway... thanks for any help!

GOLDENORFE

Hi Jen , depends on how much u want to spend?

a crop sensor canon 550 with a sigma 18-55ex f2.8 for normal shooting and a sigma 105 macro would be good start. any macro lens around 100mm best.
if you intend to specialise in macro and get mpe-65 eventually. only canon will do

Overfocused

A lot of the stuff I say may be jibberish to you, but you'll have to learn all of this stuff anyway. So, here we go!

GOLDENORFE wrote: »

Hi Jen , depends on how much u want to spend?

a crop sensor canon 550 with a sigma 18-55ex f2.8 for normal shooting and a sigma 105 macro would be good start. any macro lens around 100mm best.
if you intend to specialise in macro and get mpe-65 eventually. only canon will do

+1 to Canon as stated. Since Canon has a specialty macro lens that no other brand has, I'd go with Canon. If you end up falling in love with super close up macro and have Nikon, you will be in pain once you find out what Nikon does not have in terms of macro shooting (mp-e 65 lens). The Sigma 105 or Canon 100 F2.8 macros are both excellent. Whichever one you can get cheaper I'd start out with TBH. If you want to squeeze every bit out of your gear for macro, your camera should take a decent sized pic pixel wise (I'd say 10MP minimum), and should allow for closing to apertures of at least F/8 without muting fine details and micro-contrast. Loss of detail to small apertures is called diffraction. Each camera has its own aperture where when passed, the fine details start to get muted, or lost, depending on how far down you close your aperture. Diffraction limits depend on how packed the pixels on a camera's sensor is and how the light bends etc etc.

Quoted from www.the-digital-picture.com:

* DLA (Diffraction Limited Aperture) is the result of a mathematical formula that approximates the aperture where diffraction begins to visibly affect image sharpness at the pixel level. Diffraction at the DLA is only barely visible when viewed at full-size (100%, 1 pixel = 1 pixel) on a display or output to a very large print. As sensor pixel density increases, the narrowest aperture we can use to get perfectly pixel sharp images gets wider.

DLA does not mean that narrower apertures should not be used - it is simply the point where image sharpness begins to be compromised for increased DOF and longer exposures. And, higher resolution sensors generally continue to deliver more detail well beyond the DLA than lower resolution sensors - until the "Diffraction Cutoff Frequency" is reached (a much narrower aperture). The progression from sharp the soft is not an abrupt one - and the change from immediately prior models to new models is usually not dramatic.

Check out this specific diffraction comparison example using the ISO 12233 chart comparison tool. The mouseover feature will show you the degradation at f/11 compared to f/5.6.

Considering those things, I'd recommend either the 40D or the Rebel T3. They both have very good features to price point and can use F/8 without diffraction. Then, get a good flash, some good rechargeable batteries + charger for said flash, and a softbox for the flash. And some tape, office paper, paper towels etc. if you wanna make your own custom flash reflector

Overall I'd say you're going to spend $900-1100 for the whole setup. The 40D for ~$400, either lens is $400-500, some amazing 3rd party flashes can be gotten for ~$125 new, ~$30-40 for good batteries and a charger for flash, and ~$10-20 for a nice softbox for said flash. Get ready to read some manuals and learn a lot of stuff!

Welcome to Macroland.

Jenn

GOLDENORFE wrote: »

Hi Jen , depends on how much u want to spend?

a crop sensor canon 550 with a sigma 18-55ex f2.8 for normal shooting and a sigma 105 macro would be good start. any macro lens around 100mm best.
if you intend to specialise in macro and get mpe-65 eventually. only canon will do

OMG!! I looked at your macro gallery and I'm speechless!! I want to do that too! I'm so jealous!

Thanks for the advice... What is a reasonable price on either the camera and lenses? Is it a difficult camera to learn to operate?

Jenn

Overfocused wrote: »

A lot of the stuff I say may be jibberish to you, but you'll have to learn all of this stuff anyway. So, here we go!

+1 to Canon as stated. Since Canon has a specialty macro lens that no other brand has, I'd go with Canon. If you end up falling in love with super close up macro and have Nikon, you will be in pain once you find out what Nikon does not have in terms of macro shooting (mp-e 65 lens). The Sigma 105 or Canon 100 F2.8 macros are both excellent. Whichever one you can get cheaper I'd start out with TBH. If you want to squeeze every bit out of your gear for macro, your camera should take a decent sized pic pixel wise (I'd say 10MP minimum), and should allow for closing to apertures of at least F/8 without muting fine details and micro-contrast. Loss of detail to small apertures is called diffraction. Each camera has its own aperture where when passed, the fine details start to get muted, or lost, depending on how far down you close your aperture. Diffraction limits depend on how packed the pixels on a camera's sensor is and how the light bends etc etc.

I understood most of what you said up until the text I highlighted in red ^. I am not sure that I understand all about apertures or how they effect a photo.

Overfocused wrote: »

Quoted from www.the-digital-picture.com:

Considering those things, I'd recommend either the 40D or the Rebel T3. They both have very good features to price point and can use F/8 without diffraction. Then, get a good flash, some good rechargeable batteries + charger for said flash, and a softbox for the flash. And some tape, office paper, paper towels etc. if you wanna make your own custom flash reflector

40D or Rebel T3 are cameras or lenses?

I could have sworn when you said to get some paper towels that you were going to say I'd be needing it to wipe away tears of frustration trying to figure it all out. lol When you're taking macro photos, do you really have the time to set up a reflector? Probably a dumb question, but it's a real one.

Overfocused wrote: »

Overall I'd say you're going to spend $900-1100 for the whole setup. The 40D for ~$400, either lens is $400-500, some amazing 3rd party flashes can be gotten for ~$125 new, ~$30-40 for good batteries and a charger for flash, and ~$10-20 for a nice softbox for said flash. Get ready to read some manuals and learn a lot of stuff!

Welcome to Macroland.

Thanks for the welcome to Macroland

I looked at your gallery, too. wow ... beautiful! I love taking pictures of nature.. trees, sunsets, bugs even! Although, I only get lucky now and then with anything close to good shots like you and goldenorfe have in your galleries.

Overfocused

The reflector goes onto the flash.... I should have said reflector/diffuser depending on how you tape it together, lol. Most macro photogs make diffusers, sometimes reflectors can have better contrast and definition but they need to be big enough to be soft yet defining.

40D and the T3 are the cameras... the 40D is ~$400 used. Not sure about the T3 since I don't pay attention to the Rebels, lol

http://www.digital-cameras-help.com/photography.html

http://www.digital-cameras-help.com/aperture.html

racefan

i too have a question.....sorry to thread jack. i have a tamron 180 macro lens what distance should i shout from to get good sharp pics ?

Overfocused

Distance all depends on how close you want to, or can, get to the subject. Sharpness depends on how well you can keep your camera stable, at any given focal length. The less zoomed in you are the easier it is to keep your photo sharp, but all things equal, focal distance doesn't affect sharpness at all once you learn how to keep your camera stable at 180mm.


Depth of field, however, is directly affected by your distance. You can get DOF measurements for your gear here and get ideas of what will happen with your lens/camera combination:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Get a decent flash and learn to light with that, and that'll dramatically reduce blurry photos

racefan

ya in way i wish i would of went with the 90mm macro for the fact that its a lot easier to hand hold, but the 180mm gives the distance so i dont have to be so close to something. the 180 is kind of a pain on a tripod and a mono pod some times.

Jenn

Overfocused wrote: »

The reflector goes onto the flash.... I should have said reflector/diffuser depending on how you tape it together, lol. Most macro photogs make diffusers, sometimes reflectors can have better contrast and definition but they need to be big enough to be soft yet defining.

40D and the T3 are the cameras... the 40D is ~$400 used. Not sure about the T3 since I don't pay attention to the Rebels, lol

http://www.digital-cameras-help.com/photography.html

http://www.digital-cameras-help.com/aperture.html

Thanks for the links. How many times do I need to read them before I actually remember the information?

Overfocused

Jenn wrote: »

Thanks for the links. How many times do I need to read them before I actually remember the information?

It works better if you use the camera and just go one setting at a time... lol... aperture, shutter speed, and ISO are the main thing.