 Robert A. Simpson |
Macro lingo Hello All, I have an 70-300 mm quantaray lense with a macro feature. It shoots pretty good macro but I have to be about 4 feet from my subject with this lense. I would like to get a lense that I can get close up on my subject to take a macro shot. Can someone explain what I should look for when looking for a lense like this? For instance I am looking at a lense that says (9.4 in Macro) does this mean the closest I could get to my subject is 9.4 inches/ Thanks ahead for any info.
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Matt Marsh |
I figured that by now somebody more knowledgeable than I would have replied by now, but they haven't so I'll take a stab at helping clear things up for you. The term "macro" in the true sense of the word means that the image on the film plane or CCD is lifesize or larger, represented by a ratio of 1:1. Meaning that if you held up say a 35mm negative of an image shot at 1:1 next to the same subject, both the image on the negative and the actual subject would be the same size. 1:1 is the term to look for when deciding on a macro lens. Over the years lens manufacturers have abused the term "macro". I have yet to see one zoom lens that can actually shoot macro (1:1). The only true macro lenses out there are prime lenses, to best of my knowledge (50mm, 90mm, 100mm etc.). These lenses can pull double duty, as they can focus from the macro range (1:1) out to infinity. Many people use macro lenses for portrait photography because of the softened images they can produce at that focusing range. The most popular focal length for macro lenses seems to be in the 100mm range. This length allows allows macro shots at a longer distance. A definite plus for shooting pictures of nervous critters etc. Good macro lenses are expensive, but there are a couple other alternatives. The first one is the use of extention tubes or auto-extention tubes between your camera body and one of your exsisting lenses. Again, a prime lens seems to work best. I use my 50mm lens most of the time because it is my best prime so far. Extention tubes are merely hollow tubes with no glass in them. They add distance between the film plane or CCD chip and the rear element of the lens which allows closer focusing. Extention tubes are often sold in sets of three different lengths. They can be used seperately or stacked together to suit your needs. The term "auto-extention tubes" means that they merely have the neccesary linkage and in some cases electrical contacts needed to couple with your particular camera body and lenses to retain metering and auto focus functions. The focusing range of the lens becomes very limited. The other option is the use of reversing rings. The ring is installed in the filter threads of two lenses. One lense is installed on your camera body, and the other is reversed so that it is nose to nose with the other. This method is not as handy as the other two because focusing must be achived by manually moving the camera closer and farther away to the subject. The focusing rings on the lenses themselves are pretty much useless here. Although this is an inconvenience, great results can be achived with the use of reversing rings. There is one more option that I know of, but I haven't seen as good of results, and that is the use of diopter filters screwed onto the front of the lens.
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Robert A. Simpson |
Thanks Matt, very helpful!
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