close up scale shots help

so, i love the really close up scale macro shots of scales, but i never really could get the hang of it. The closest I have come is this....



any body have any tips on how to get the really good close ups? flash, no flash, anny methods at all. I have a Kodak z700. thanks guys

i know if you stick a magnifying glass tight to your camera, and then take a picture on your macro setting should work real good. a steady hand is key too, especially on a macro seting.

You may want to think about getting a flash. Macro photography without it can be pretty tough. Without lots of light so you can use the smallest aperture available, depth of field will suffer greatly. So getting exactly the spot you want to be in perfectly in focus without everything else looking like one big blurry mess will be real tough to do. Small aperture means longer exposure time, which means the real good probability that camera shake will blur the entire image.

If your camera allows screw on filters on the lens, you can probably get macro filters to help out with closeups. But I still recommend a flash or some photo quality flood lights.

Yeah, when dealing with super close-ups, you NEED alot of light, and perferably a tripod or something to stablize the camera on. What I've ended up doing (not the right way, but a means to and end anyhow...lol) is taking a TON of shots and usually one out of the mix will be in focus (because, even WITH a tripod, the scaley subject doesn't always like to stand still). Also, it helps having a larger megapixel camera, because then you can always just zoom in and crop to show just the point of focus, lol.

These first two shots were taken with a Macro lense on my Nikon D50:





I've started just using my kit lense (18-55 mm) for scale shots and have been having better luck with it. You can get away with not having a tripod when using this lense at times (with the macro, the slightest mm of movement seems to blur things).





Again, I'm still cropping the HECK out of things. That BP scale shot originated from this pic:



I know nothing about photography...every time I enroll in a begining class somewhere, I end up getting a job and have to cancel. But the beauty of shooting digital is being able to expirement and take endless amounts of photos! Just shoot and shoot and try to keep track of what you did each time and what works and what doesn't.

I use the super macro outdoors in good light. I haven't used a tripod yet, but when my camera gets back from repair, I'm going to play with that.



The first two were taken at night with super macro and a flashlight to give it enough illumination. The last was taken outdoors.

WOW Meg, those night shots are awesome!! What kind of camera are you using?

I have an Olympus L-5050 digital. Nothing fancy, just played with the macro settings and a flashlight.