 Devon N. Henderson |
30D Macro? Hello everybody! I've been using point and shoot cameras for most of my life so I'm not really familiar with the whole DSLR deal. I just got a Canon 30D for my sweet 16 last month and I got an 18-55mm and a 75-300mm lens with it. I'm mostly interested in macro photography so I was wondering if somebody could help me figure out what I'd need to get to get started. I'm totally lost since my last camera was a Minolta A200 and that had a built in macro feature... any help is appreciated! Thanks, Devon Henderson
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robert G. Fately |
Devon, probably the simples way to get into close-up/macro photography is to get a so-called close-up lens. These actually look like clear filters that screw onto the front of your existing lens - they are actually optical glass ground to a specific curvature (diopter) that allows your lens to get much closer to the subject (at the same time, not allowing the lens to focus at a distance until you remove them). You can check your camera store for these filter/close-up lenses - they're made by Tiffen, Hoya B+W and others. In fact, Canon makes a couple that are a bit better than most - they use two glass elements sandwiched together - I use on on my - 'gasp!' - Nikon camera. The next alternative would be an extension tube - this is essentially a hollow tube that you fit between the lens and camera. By moving the lens physically forward, it enable closer focusing (again, at the expense of losing distant focus ability while the tube is on there). A bellows is essentially a variable extension tube. With tubes and bellows, there is a bit of light lost due to the further placement of the lens from the image plane, but the internal camera meter will accommodate for that so you don't have to recalculate anything. The finsl, best, and most expensive alternative is a dedicated macro lens. If you find yourself doing a lot of close-up work then you might want to get one of these some day. But for the immediate future you can experiment a lot with a close-up lens (the filter-like thing I described above).
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Devon N. Henderson |
Thanks for all of your help! My dad just gave me a bunch of Cokin filters that he had so now I just need the adapter ring for the holder... I think I'm still going to try to get the screw in kind you mentioned above. I was reading a little bit on flashes.. is it a good idea to get a circular flash? or should I not worry about that? And is there anything else I should get for starters?
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Amy JACKSON |
Hi Devon! I have the 30D also. I use the Canon 50mm F2.5 compact macro lens. I love it because it is very versatile. I use it very often for macros, portraits, still lifes, and low light situations.
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Devon N. Henderson |
thanks for your help Amy!
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