FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Macro photography is essentially "extreme close up" photography. You can use macro techniques to get insane details and close ups of your carnivorous plants.

If you have a basic point and shoot digital camera, simply zoom in as far as you can with optical zoom and focus. You may need to take a few steps back for it to focus well. Don't use digital zoom, because that only crops the image and degrades the quality. Most cameras also have a setting that looks like a little flower, that's the macro setting. It will automatically set a wide aperture to blur the background of your image so you can see your subject more clearly.

SLR type cameras can attach macro lenses and adapters to increase focal length. Make sure these are compatible with your camera! Different brands of cameras will have different lens mounts. Also be aware that the more stuff you put in front of your lens, the more your image quality will go down. One or two adapters stacked on won't make a huge difference but keep it in mind before you stack like 5 of them on there for ultimate magnification.

In addition to macro adapters, there are teleconverters. These are like an extra mini-lens that you put on your main lens. They're more expensive, but give good magnification and clarity.

Macro lenses can get pretty pricey, so a good alternative is to use a lens with a long focal length, like 100mm and up. A all-purpose zoom lens will work great. You will have to back away some from your subject in order for it focus adequately, but it should make a good photo!

That's enough of my photo nerdity for now. Just saw this forum and had to unleash it!

Thanks for the info.

I'm actually in the market for a new digital camera to get macro shots of seedlings, but I've no clue what to get...I'm trying to keep the price range around $300, but I'm more interested in quality. An SLR would be ideal I think, if I can swing the price. Everyone seems to recommend Canon.

There's a guy over on terraforums, elgecko, who recently got a new macro lens and took a couple photos to test it out. It must be one crazy lens - here's a pic of a drosera (binata maybe?) leaf that caught a fly.

Here's the thread: http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showt ... p?t=119993

Great post Mia! I've been meaning to make a How-To post for people that struggle with taking close ups of their plants. I don't think that most people know how to use the macro setting on their camera or that most cameras have enough resolution that you don't actually have to get that close to the plant to take a quality photo. If you take a step back, take the photo and then crop it to just show the plant, most cameras have more than enough resolution to have a high quality "close-up" photo.

SLR photo equipment can get pretty pricey, but you'd be amazed at the quality of photos you can get with a little point and shoot digital camera with a macro setting.

ModeratelyExcessive wrote:
If you have a basic point and shoot digital camera, simply zoom in as far as you can with optical zoom and focus. You may need to take a few steps back for it to focus well. Don't use digital zoom, because that only crops the image and degrades the quality.

How do I tell if my point and shoot is using digital or optical zoom? I use a Nikkon coolpix s210 that has 3x optical zoom. Will it stay as optical zoom until I go beyond 3x, or is there a setting for it?

twigs wrote:

ModeratelyExcessive wrote:
If you have a basic point and shoot digital camera, simply zoom in as far as you can with optical zoom and focus. You may need to take a few steps back for it to focus well. Don't use digital zoom, because that only crops the image and degrades the quality.

How do I tell if my point and shoot is using digital or optical zoom? I use a Nikkon coolpix s210 that has 3x optical zoom. Will it stay as optical zoom until I go beyond 3x, or is there a setting for it?

Yes, it will keep using optical zoom until you go past 3x. If you keep going past 3x, you'll be using digital zoom. You will notice on the screen that the image will just get bigger with digital zoom instead of actually getting closer with the optics.

Veronis wrote:Thanks for the info.

I'm actually in the market for a new digital camera to get macro shots of seedlings, but I've no clue what to get...I'm trying to keep the price range around $300, but I'm more interested in quality. An SLR would be ideal I think, if I can swing the price. Everyone seems to recommend Canon.

There's a guy over on terraforums, elgecko, who recently got a new macro lens and took a couple photos to test it out. It must be one crazy lens - here's a pic of a drosera (binata maybe?) leaf that caught a fly.

Here's the thread: http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showt ... p?t=119993

Yeah, Canon is stomping out all the other camera competition lately. You can get a refurbished Canon Rebel SLRs for pretty cheap. Many of them will come with a kit lens too. If you want to look at good point and shoots, the Canon Powershot and Canon G are both a great series of cameras.

Sweet photo! Yeah macro lenses give you amazing shots if you're willing to invest.

I didn't know that the flower was the macro setting button until I read some article. That was like a month ago... Well I didn't know it was called that...

lemonlily wrote:I didn't know that the flower was the macro setting button until I read some article. That was like a month ago... Well I didn't know it was called that...

They should change that flower picture to a VFT.

ModeratelyExcessive wrote:

lemonlily wrote:I didn't know that the flower was the macro setting button until I read some article. That was like a month ago... Well I didn't know it was called that...

They should change that flower picture to a VFT.

YEAH!

I really need to get a good point & shoot camera that takes good macros. I've been using my 3MP camera phone to take all my pictures lately... (at least it has a macro setting). Thanks for the information.

So between the G and Powershot series, which is better to get? I also want the alternate operating system to get the multiple focal length sequencing... thanks!

I can probably shed some light onto this, what models are you looking at specifically?

I was thinking of the G that recently was no longer made but heard it's a really good camera. Not decided on the powershot model, could be any really... But also the A590si.. Thanks for your help.

Just looking at the stats of the cameras I would personally purchase the G10 over the A590. The only advantage the A590 has over the G10 is size and weight and it's maximum aperture is 2.6 instead of 2.8. That said, the macro abilities of the G10 are much better, it has a higher resolution sensor and a larger zoom range. That said, it is quite a bit more expensive. It looks like the G10 is more geared towards people who are into photography and the A590 is more of a simple point and shoot camera. With price in mind (I'm not entirely sure what you're looking to do with the camera aside from taking pictures of your lovely plants) you could think about spending another $100 and getting their base model DSLR (EOS Rebel XS) which will give you higher quality pictures than either of the point and shoot style cameras.

What about the alternate operating systems on each camera? I would like to take multiple focal length series with one click to get an "everything in focus" picture - as well as time lapse.