close up shots with a digital camera?

I'm using Adobe Lightroom. I think it's about $150, but I bought it at the educational price of $80...And then I had to buy tutorials in how to use it! But I love it. It takes some work to go from a generic "enhance" command to doing each step manually, but the results are worth it. (And if you look at my photos, they are still far from perfectly processed, still...)

Originally Posted by yojoe05

Not really planning on printing out I just need something to get close ups on my snakes while they're younger so patterning and eye color and such can be seen better.

Read your camera's manual. If it has a "Macro Mode", use it. In the manual it should tell you what your minimum focusing distance is. This is the minimum distance from your subject to the front lens element that your camera can physically focus on a subject. Use a tripod and use this minimum focusing distance for closeups. Here's an example:



This is a praying mantis. My front lens element is about 4 inches from the mantis' face. This picture is uncropped. It IS resized for web viewing, but the image is as it looked when the camera took the shot. It's crisp and clear because it is sharply focused and not cropped or zoomed digitally. You can get similar results using a point and shoot camera with a macro or super macro mode, and careful focusing. You just need to know where your minimum focusing distance is and be ready for the shot...

I'm saving up to buy a macro lens for my camera. Hopefully I'll be able to get nicer shots with it! I'm frustrated by not being able to get as close as I want to, much of the time, when in macro mode.

Originally Posted by Nanci

I'm saving up to buy a macro lens for my camera. Hopefully I'll be able to get nicer shots with it! I'm frustrated by not being able to get as close as I want to, much of the time, when in macro mode.

Sigma makes an outstanding 105mm macro lens for most major DSLR mounts. That's what I use, and it's just an extraordinary lens. And it's usually less than $500...

I'm just uploading this pic here to see what it looks like. Crap, probably! I would like all the body parts to be in focus. I don't know what to do to change that.

Chris, I just have a Sony NEX...I can't commit to a big DSLR that will just sit at home, then, because it's huge. So it's a small body, but you can put E-mount lenses on it.

I was surprised yesterday that Katie used a telephoto lens to photograph the spider. She said she could focus more clearly with that. Something for me to think about, I guess.

So I was thinking about this macro lens

but maybe a telephoto would be more versatile? I mean, she was taking pics of a green anole 30 feet up in a tree, that I couldn't even see!! Like this one.

The lens I have on it now is 18-55mm.

That photo is pretty cropped, too. I couldn't get any closer to it. Without losing focus. Yeah, I'm not happy with that result.

Telephotos can work well, but they typically have a minimum focusing distance of 3' or more. Not a problem if it's a 600mm lens and you're shooting hawks. A bit of a pain in the arse if you're shooting wild rattlers or spiders because you have to stand back so far. Teles also tend to have narrower apertures making it a bit difficult to soften backgrounds, especially from 3' away, and seriously inhibiting your natural light shooting abilities. It's gonna be slower in soft light or shade, meaning shooting without a tripod is gonna be tougher...

That macro looks pretty good. f/3.5 is a nice wide aperture for soft bokeh in the background and quick shutter speeds in soft light and low ISO. And with a minimum focusing distance of 1", you should have no problem getting tight, clean, and laser crisp photos. It's a 30mm lens, but they call it a 1:1, so my guess is that your camera has a 1.5X focal length factor. That basically means, it would be roughly equivalent to a 50mm lens with a 1/2" minimum focusing distance, on a 35mm film camera. A perfect walk-around, portrait, and macro lens. A lens that should be in every serious photog's bag of tricks...

To be honest I use my camera for mostly generic shots most of the time. After reading more on the thread I started looking and I found my macro shot setting. I'll give it a test and post the results tonight on this thread so you can get a look at it.

I don't know if my camera will have the detail that your photos have but I'm going to fool around with the photos a bit and see how things go. I did just do a photo shoot with Rapunzel and her scale details and everything definitely did seem to stand out more and I was able to take photos of her from only 4-5" away now instead of almost a foot.

just a few of the shots I kept from the photos I took this evening with my macro set up. It definitely allowed for a cleaner up close shot which is what I was aiming for. I'm satisfied with these.