Question for the macro folks

TristanP

My Dad called this evening with a question. A retired professor friend of his wants to shoot macros of very small insects - several millimeters long and a bit longer. He doesn't want to (and can't) spend the $ for a dslr, macro lens, special flashes, reversed 50mm, etc. From what I remember of the P&S cameras, when you have a close focusing distance (like on the F717), you had to zoom all the way out. A 250D or 500D lens would help, but I'm not sure they would get the results he's thinking of. I thought maybe a microscope with a camera adapter (much like shooting afocally with a telescope) would be a possibility. Any ideas from the experts here? Are there any P&S digicams out there now that'll do this kind of extreme macro shooting?

donek

TristanP wrote:

My Dad called this evening with a question. A retired professor friend of his wants to shoot macros of very small insects - several millimeters long and a bit longer. He doesn't want to (and can't) spend the $ for a dslr, macro lens, special flashes, reversed 50mm, etc. From what I remember of the P&S cameras, when you have a close focusing distance (like on the F717), you had to zoom all the way out. A 250D or 500D lens would help, but I'm not sure they would get the results he's thinking of. I thought maybe a microscope with a camera adapter (much like shooting afocally with a telescope) would be a possibility. Any ideas from the experts here? Are there any P&S digicams out there now that'll do this kind of extreme macro shooting?

I saw something in the last 4 to 6 weeks about a guy who got his start with a point and shoot. Something about his kid bringing him a bug and suggesting they take a picture of it got him started. There was a link to his stuff. It was pretty amazing stuff. Only problem is that I'm lousy at saving that sort of stuff in my favorites. Maybe someone will remember it based on my description.

Just googled "my son macro bug insect" and found it.
http://www.mplonsky.com/photo/article.htm
Check that out. It might help.

Dalantech

Mark Plonsky is a macro photographer that I look up to -you can not go wrong reading his web site! He sometimes participates in the weekly macro thread that I run over at DP Review's Cannon SLR Lens Talk forum (I post as "John K" there): http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=19134567


Although I'm not sure if Mark's style of shooting will work for a subject that's only a few millimeters long -I think your friend would be better off renting an MPE-65...

Skippy

TristanP wrote:

My Dad called this evening with a question. A retired professor friend of his wants to shoot macros of very small insects - several millimeters long and a bit longer. He doesn't want to (and can't) spend the $ for a dslr, macro lens, special flashes, reversed 50mm, etc. From what I remember of the P&S cameras, when you have a close focusing distance (like on the F717), you had to zoom all the way out. A 250D or 500D lens would help, but I'm not sure they would get the results he's thinking of. I thought maybe a microscope with a camera adapter (much like shooting afocally with a telescope) would be a possibility. Any ideas from the experts here? Are there any P&S digicams out there now that'll do this kind of extreme macro shooting?

Hmmmmm ..... well your right about the Sony you can zoom in pretty dang close and adding the Canon 250D makes things even closer....however you still have the problem of "not enough light" when I used that type of setup, I have a Sony F707 I still used an External Flash and also the Canon 250D attached......... the results are very pleasing.

Here's one I took with the Sony F707/250D...not sure if I stacked 2 ?



I also have a Microscope, with a Camera Adapter on it, which takes the Sony and it takes my Canon 20D, but I have failed to successfully focus anything with the 20D, and can't figure out why...... I'm thinking the Zoom capabilities of the Sony being so high has a lot to do with it.

Not sure that I'm being all that helpful..... surely someone out there on the forum has a little compact type camera that does good Macro's ??

Hopefully someone will post with an answer for you soon
Good luck.......... Skippy (Australia)

Red Bull

I believe that there is an older Olympus digital camera that had a 1cm macro focus.

I also remember seeing that the Fujifilm S9000 Z was capable of a 1cm focus. Might want to check that out. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Fujifilm/fuji_finepixs9000z.asp

ziggy53

TristanP wrote:

My Dad called this evening with a question. A retired professor friend of his wants to shoot macros of very small insects - several millimeters long and a bit longer. He doesn't want to (and can't) spend the $ for a dslr, macro lens, special flashes, reversed 50mm, etc. From what I remember of the P&S cameras, when you have a close focusing distance (like on the F717), you had to zoom all the way out. A 250D or 500D lens would help, but I'm not sure they would get the results he's thinking of. I thought maybe a microscope with a camera adapter (much like shooting afocally with a telescope) would be a possibility. Any ideas from the experts here? Are there any P&S digicams out there now that'll do this kind of extreme macro shooting?

Let's start with the microscope idea. This would work, except remember that there is no aperture, so you can't vary the DOF, which is very shallow. Image stacking might work, but it's time consuming and often not too reliable (in my experience, which is why you haven't seen any stacked images from me, not that I haven't tried.) These are definitely shot using a dSLR.

You can check out some of my tests here:

http://ziggy53.smugmug.com/gallery/1231664/1/57718752

... and this is the thread used to describe the setup and issues like magnification:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=28810

This image shows that it is possible to photomicrograph to a few milimeters at full frame:

---

I have shot at 1:1 macro (35mm full-frame equivalent) with both the Sony F828 and the Minolta A2 when they were equipped with the appropriate macro attachment lens. Here is one example:

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=251473&postcount=34

... and here is a sample at 1:1 from the link,



Since a full frame is 36mm wide, that means that those cameras, and others I am sure, shoot images of objects representing the same 36mm width. If you crop to a 10x section, you are looking at 3.6mm subject width, with around 326 x 245 pixels, about the same as QVGA (320 x 240 pixels). If that resolution would suffice, you have a simple solution. (Hint, in order to gauge a true 1:1 macro, I use a US quarter coin. At 25mm diameter, if I just over-fill the height of the frame with the quarter coin, it is the same as 1:1 on a full-frame 35mm camera, which has a 24mm frame height. In the example above, it is a US 5 cent piece, smaller than the US quarter.)

Lighting will be an issue, even if they don't want to deal with it. I suggest at least one external hotshoe flash and then you might have to fabricate some simple modifiers to redirect the light into the subject in different ways.

---

Pathfinder mentioned this site:

http://beautifulbugs.com/beautifulbugs/howto.htm

in his article here:

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=147188&postcount=28


Great stuff and they mention the MPlonsky site using digicams.

Best,

ziggy53

Dalantech

Skippy wrote:

Here's one I took with the Sony F707/250D...not sure if I stacked 2 ?



.......... Skippy (Australia)

Excellent shot Skippy