_GOTOBOTTOM
Photography
Questions about shooting your models and dioramas? Ask here.
Dumb Macro question of the day
totenkopf23
Visit this Community
England - North West, United Kingdom
Member Since: November 02, 2016
entire network: 2 Posts
KitMaker Network: 1 Posts
Posted: Tuesday, November 01, 2016 - 06:40 PM UTC
Been looking at the subject of macro for some time now.
I get it , moderately understand it, but price of a good lense has has kept me away.
Got some extension tubes to play around and do some experiments.
So here it is.....
If macro enables getting a small subject to fill the frame, and normally you cant get the camera close enough to this within focus...... why not focus at minimum distance and zoom in ?
Quality? im being dumb? doesnt work like that?
mmeier
Visit this Community
Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Member Since: October 22, 2008
entire network: 1,280 Posts
KitMaker Network: 213 Posts
Posted: Tuesday, November 01, 2016 - 09:42 PM UTC
No you are not. Macro lenses of DSLx style cameras are used for stuff like "picture of a housefly" or similar stuff. Specialist lenses that are not needed for model fotografie. The classic "kit" lense like the 18-55 is normally "good enough" for model pictures since you are using rather large f-stops (f/8-f/16 depending on sensor and lens quality) for maximum depth of field anyway. And the minimum distance of some zooms is not that much bigger anyway. I.e my Tamron 24-70 is "38cm" and a Tamron 90/f2.8 (a full featured macro lense) is "30cm".

Since some macro lenses (i.e the Tamron 90/f2. are also quite nice portrait lenses some fotographers that prefer primes have them anyway and then use them.

Taylortony
Visit this Community
United Kingdom
Member Since: November 30, 2010
entire network: 126 Posts
KitMaker Network: 22 Posts
Posted: Wednesday, July 05, 2017 - 07:33 PM UTC
Because as you zoom the focal length changes.
165thspc
#521
Visit this Community
Kentucky, United States
Member Since: April 13, 2011
entire network: 9,465 Posts
KitMaker Network: 176 Posts
Posted: Wednesday, July 05, 2017 - 08:37 PM UTC
With the most common "normal" zoom lenses the minimum focussing distance at 18mm may not be the same as the minimum focusing distance at 55mm. So just focusing and then zooming in may actually produce an out of focus photo.

p.s. The higher the f/ number setting the more depth of field you will get in your photo. Therefore on closeups you should sacrifice shutter speed (use a slower shutter speed) to allow for a higher lens f/ number so that more of your subject will be in focus.
 _GOTOTOP