Extreme close up photography

[VirusType2]

I noticed that some of you are taking really good close up photos. Is that done with a special lens?

I want to take pictures of things as small as the size of an ant.

My camera can't focus on anything closer than about 2 feet away, which means, the ant will be a speck on a gigantic photo.


I would like one that has a wired 'shoot' button so that I don't disturb the camera by pressing the button.

another thing that sucks about my camera is that every time you want to do a timer shot, you have to go into the menu, and the menu buttons are kind of cumbersome.


I don't want to spend a lot. Do any of you have some suggestions or recommendations?

Thanks

 

[xcellerate]

They're called Macro Shots. One way to do them on an SLR is to literally just flip your lens around, they make adapters that hold them that way (Micro-Macro shots is the name I believe), but you could always just buy a macro lens.

 

[Kadayi]

You need a macro lens. Though if you're shooting with a V.high MP digital Camera you should be able to zoom in on your actual image file a fair degree anyway without losing picture fidelity. I'd recommend shooting in your cameras manufacturers Raw format rather than Jpeg (if you have the option), then convert the shots using, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop (with Camera Raw Plugin) or Apples Aperture application, to 16 bit images rather than 8 bit (tiffs are good). You loose so much image information, in terms of tonal range if you shoot Jpeg exclusively, it's almost not worth attempting to do anything fancy with them.

 

[Unfocused]

Even compact digital cameras often have a macro setting and can take quite good macro pics. Of course it depends on what you want, but if you're happy with say flower shots like this, then a compact camera will do.

 

[Adabiviak]

My S3-IS has a 'super' macro that's not too bad. For my serious close ups, I have a trinocular microscope with a USB camera that fits in the third eyepiece. Frankly, the camera is shite (low resolution and a few bad pixels), but that's what I get for $100 off eBay.

By the way, what kind of camera do you have, Virus?

 

[Qonfused]

I loves the super macro function on the S3IS. You could literally put an item ON the lens and it would focus.

 

[VirusType2]

I'm trying to break into some sort of career in photography. Like diving into the deep end head first - with sharks. Sink or swim.

I have some other career ideas that I'm fleshing out as well, but something about this one seems ... a lot of fun, actually.

This a subject where nearly every sentence I read teaches me something.

When I said I only started taking photos a few days ago, I was serious. It was my first time. I had a point and shoot camera about 25 years ago with no adjustments at all, and about 6 years ago I got a digital Hi-8 video camera that was about $550 but is probably Standard Definition so it's pretty much worth nothing professionally anymore I guess.

Anyway, for about 50 years my father's biggest hobby was always photography, and by hobby I mean obsession, and it's kind of in my blood even though I never lived with him.

I would like to do landscape and telephoto and macro. I would like to try to do without wide angle lens, though I hear they are very good for group photos of people.


The things I want to photograph are people as a group and people on an individual basis, landscape photos, interior photos, architectural photos, insects and flowers, and other extremely close shots.

I really don't want to spend a fortune.

I need something that will be good for an amateur as well as a professional. Since I'm new to this I don't know how to set up the lenses and exposure times and things like that. I hear that the pro cameras are completely manual, so I'm worried it will be too much to learn? I don't mind spending a lot of time learning, but I'm intimidated by the learning curve of something like that. I have no idea how hard it is to learn. At least with digital cameras, you don't have to pay for film. I will definitely be going with digital.

The other thing is, I was tripped by a downed barbed wire fence that was rusted and hidden in the shadows of the brush, and I just had too much weight forward and couldn't recover and my camera and tripod went flying along with me, but luckily no harm was done because the dense forest covering cushioned the impact.

I just don't want to spend too much on something - especially in a digital age where advances are so great and so fast. I'm also afraid it will get broken or stolen.

edit - right now i have a Fuji Finepix A360 it's 4.1MP and has a fixed lens

 

[Kadayi]

Photography in the modern age is less about the perfect shot as seem through the camera lens, as what occurs either in the dark room or on the computer later on. If your shot is in focus, and the lighting is good your halfway home. Frame, composition etc you can all adjust down the line if they aren't perfect. Composition, rule of thirds:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

Your list of requirements isn't exactly narrow. What I'd say is concentrate on one theme, say Portraits for example, and explore differing approaches until your happy you have developed a method and approach. Ansel Adams didn't do Portraits and Steven Meisel doesn't do landscapes.

Digital is probably the best way to go, as film Photography really requires a darkroom and is highly time consuming. However your going to need software to work with to turn your photographs into decent images, and your also going to need to know how to use it professionally. A lot of people download Photoshop and 'dabble' here and there, but very few people really get to grips with the fundamentals of how the application works. If you are prepared to invest the time and effort into learning the mechanics of the application as well as complex issues such as Colour management, you'll be all the better for it.

A good book is Adobe Photoshop C33 for Photographers, by Martin Evening, which covers a lot of issues (colour management being a big one).

An alternative to Photoshop is Adobe Lightroom, which is more orientated towards photographic professionals who are processing lot's of images, such as fashion shoots, Portrait shots, etc, and don't necessarily require all the bells and whistles photoshop possesses in terms of manipulation or retouching.

There are plenty of free video tutorial and tip podcasts available through Itunes about using Photoshop & Lightroom which are worth subscribing to.

Camera wise personally I'd say the market leaders in terms of quality are presently Canon & Nikon atm. I recently bought a Nikon D60 which will do a 10MP image (which is more than enough) and shoots in Jpeg as well as Camera Raw (which I prefer, see earlier post), and is good for most things, though it doesn't have macro. However the D40 it's slightly older brother is a pretty good Camera and a touch cheaper. I'm sure the Canon boys have their recommendations though as well. There are plenty of shot comparison sites out there for various cameras, it worth hunting around for the one you thinks going to deliver you results.

D60:- http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/ND60/ND60A.HTM

I think they sum it up nicely in the appraisal. If I was a bit more serious I'd of sprung for a D80 or a D300, but the D60 suits my needs overall.


An alternative route to consider is to look at the more fun, low-tech approach to Photography such as you'll find with film based cameras like the Lomo and holga, which because they are cheap and have plastic lenses produce interesting colour shifts in the images they produce.

Cameras:-

http://shop.lomography.com/shop/

examples of Lomo photographs:-

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=lomo&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

Personally I'm looking to buy a Lomo camera at some point, as they have an appeal. Great for boozy summer time parties, or spontaneous events.

One approach to making money is to consider putting images you take up on a stock photo site such as:-

http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php

If your photos sell then you get the money, less their commission, though naturally once you've put something up there you've lost all rights to it.

 

[VirusType2]

I really appreciate the replies. Kadayi, your post is eerily exactly what I 'know' so far. And by 'know' I mean 'believe.'

I want to take landscape and close up photos because that is what interests me, but I was thinking - I'll have to take some pictures of people whether I want to or not. If I knew what branch I could get a job with that would narrow it down.

In fact I had listed a Nikon with a lens on there (the exact one is on my other computer at home), but I wanted to hear what you guys thought depending on my requirements first, so I erased it.

It's funny about the stock photos, because that was one intended side effect of practice and hobby photography.


My sister is a graphics designer (I think that's her title) anyway, when I mentioned it to her, she admitted she uses those stock photos all the time.

I've used photo and image editing software extensively, but ironically, not much for photos. Anyway, It's not a stretch.

 

[Qonfused]

Commercial photography is all about equipment and no return. You're lucky if you get a steady job with commercial photography; otherwise you're all out alone and the expense is all on you. Portraits are a different breed, though. I'd ask around your town (actual studios, not that Wal-Mart bullshit) and see if any would let you job shadow. I doubt they'd hire a person with no experience. Practice on friends, practice, practice.

But you say you want to do stock photography. There are a few sites that come to mind that do give you money every time one of your photos is downloaded, though it is only pennies per. I'm not exactly sure how successful people are on those, but the sites have been around for a while.

Photography anything more than at a consumer level is an expensive hobby, I'm warning you now. I've spent upwards of two grand on my current set up which isn't anything special at all. Two grand might not seem like a lot, but for me, a student, it's a huge chunk. And like I said, I basically have the lowest lens in each field (wide-zoom, telephoto-zoom, prime).

I'm not trying to defer you from chasing your dreams (the cost, upkeep, etc. hasn't deterred me), but your decision seems rather impulsive. Start cheap. The D40 is a good suggestion (it was my first DSLR). Play with it for awhile and make sure you really want to continue on with this before you truly empty your wallet and regret it.

 

[Kadayi]

I'm a visualiser, 2D & 3D and mix and match across software and image types, but I studied Photography (amongst other things) back in my Art College days, and use Photoshop a lot for image adjustment, esp for montages.

One thing I really do emphasize is that in order to use the maximum potential of whatever digital Camera you do buy, is to shoot using the Cameras Raw Mode (.NEF in the case of Nikon for example) rather than straight to Jpeg. Jpeg images are fine when it comes to the end of process (an acceptable format when your image adjustments are complete), but you don't want to be working with them from the off because their tonal range is so incredibly limited Vs what the Camera sensor actually records, and any significant adjustments will band your image and leave it looking flat. With every shot I carry out a basic non-destructive visual adjustment in Camera Raw, then save out a 16 bit Tiff version using the ProphotoRGB range (it has a broader colour gamut than Adobe RGB 1998 for 16 bit images) and at 300DPI. It's only after I've carried out any later adjustment work in Photoshop and I'm happy with it, that I might save out an 8 bit Jpeg version. If I am working in an 8 bit mode I ensure Photoshops Colour settings are using Adobe RGB (1998) as that's the broadest RGB gamut. You should also consider buying a Colour calibration unit for your monitor as well, and you should calibrate fairly regularly.

Listen to Qonfused though. What he says is pretty sensible.

If your into Photoshop etc, your as well to look for a job as a retoucher or some such, working for someone. You'll learn a hell of a lot out about imagery and valuable skills.

 

[VirusType2]

Great advice, thanks.

I've become discouraged. I've just found out that there is no demand for nature photographs, and setting up complex compositions(?) for 1 shot doesn't sound very ideal either.

So I'm thinking that some kind of individual, group or event photography would be the only option, and that doesn't interest me very much. I would do it just for a paycheck, but I'm inexperienced and have no pro equipment.

I guess I'll never get to do what I want or else they wouldn't pay you for it.

I'm still very interested in photography, it's just that this doesn't seem like it's going to get me a paycheck any time soon.


The microscope photography and creature/insects close-up is the most fascinating to me. Wonder if there is any chance for employment doing something like that?

 

[Kadayi]

Stock Photography has kind of killed off professional nature photography tbh. But Portraiture & events are still viable.

 

[ZachAttack]

This guy ate my newer turtle.

 

[Adabiviak]

Don't give up on photography just because it may not earn you a living - it's pretty fun, and it sounds like you've got the bite. Is there a local community college that offers a photography class? That would be a good foundation for some of the info needed to take 'great' pictures (ISO speed differences, f stops, shutter speeds, correct flash timings...), and shouldn't be too expensive. How much is too much for a camera? The very nice photomicroscopy photos I see online are invariably from universities with SEMs or otherwise high-end biology and chemistry equipment (although for pictures taken with optical lenses, the major differences seem to be the lighting techniques). Here's a dragonfly my wife found in a tree last night. It was just hanging there, and had this very pretty reddish iridescence on its wings that I tried to capture. I think it's an immature Red Saddlebag?

 

[VirusType2]

Don't give up on photography just because it may not earn you a living - it's pretty fun, and it sounds like you've got the bite.


Here's a dragonfly my wife found in a tree last night. It was just hanging there, and had this very pretty reddish iridescence on its wings that I tried to capture. I think it's an immature Red Saddlebag?

I'm not giving up on photography. It's something I've always been interested in, and it makes me wonder why I waited so long to pick up the hobby. Mostly because it's not cheap, and because I was waiting for technology to really get up there for resolutions and things like that.


I'd love to take pictures like that.

There are quite a bit of these kind of fireflies around here:




The colors are so incredible, if only I could take some close ups like yours. The sun was so hot and bright, I couldn't see through the viewfinder without laying on the grass, so unfortunately they are out of focus.


Here is some kind of iridescent green wasp. It obviously likes flowers. I doubled the size of these 2 because they were so small. I was actually photographing the flower it was on.




Finally, here is a crazy looking spider web with 2 spiders

The wind wouldn't stop blowing, so I couldn't get a focused shot.

I guess I would need a telephoto lens to take pictures like Abridiviak?

I see so many types of spiders around here. Each one looks completely unique. I even saw a yellow and green one that had evolved to look exactly like a flower bud that it was sitting on, and the camouflage was so good, that I wouldn't have noticed it if it wasn't eating a huge grasshopper.