paulwrxboro

can someone help me im after a camera that takes close up photos some thing like these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...922835734&rd=1 not the watch the photos.
The camera i have at the moment as soon as i put it close things go blury am i doing something wrong ?

imlach

Your digital camera (or 35mm camera) will have a mode called 'macro mode'.
You need to select this (it sometimes has the icon of a flower beside the button).

This will allow you to focus about 3-5cm from the subject to be photographed.

You will achieve similar results to that in your ebay link.

fast bloke

rtfm.... the word in TFM you are looking for is 'macro function'

imlach

PS If your camera does not have a macro mode, you'll need a new camera.

imlach

Another Scoobynet Customer Services success - 0800 555 555

carl

PS: That Rolex looks like a fake to me. The date thingy appears to be stuck on rather than ground out of the glass. And the date doesn't appear in the middle of it either.

fast bloke

sss probably been clocked then

paulwrxboro

its already on macro mode (flower) but needs to be about 5/6" away i need some thing closer

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Looks like you may need a new camera, then. Many SLR lenses let you focus pretty close anyway, and you can always get a dedicated macro lens if you're doing a lot of this sort of thing. Another option is to space the lens away from the camera body with an extension tube, which is what I do - this allows closer focus to be achieved (but with the loss of ability to focus on distant objects for as long as the tube is in place).

You may be able to buy clip-on close-up lenses for your camera - check with the manufacturer or a decent camera shop. Try SRB Film or Speed Graphic - if anyone makes such a filter for your camera, these guys will sell it.

If you have access to an SLR lens, try holding it back-to-front right in front of your camera (ie. so the front element of the lens almost touches your camera), and place your subject a few cm away from the (normally) rear element of the SLR lens. Play with the distances a little and you may get a sharp, close-up image. If it's a zoom lens, changing the zoom will alter the magnification. Move the subject to achieve focus.

What are you trying to photograph anyway? (Looking forward to seeing the result )

tucker101uk

If you look in his feedback at the last few items he has bought... It includes...

B&D BLACK AND DECKER POWERFILE BELTS from SHINING BRIGHT METAL POLISHING SUPPLIES...

hmmmm lol

Brendan Hughes

Lot of psychics on here. How about, if you tell us what camera you've got, we can tell you whether you need to press a button, buy an accessory or dump the whole thing? At the moment I don't know if you've got a Hasselblad, a Boots disposable, or a Nokia phone...

paulwrxboro

Thanks for the help Imlach Andy c upto now. my camra is a konica kd-25 digital camera it cost £100 6 month ago. I think i will be looking for a macro lens camera maybe upto £150

mad_dr

If you're not an expert and don't fancy going down the SLR/DSLR route, I'd recommend a Nikon for Macro work - the Canon static-lens (Not changable) models have a poor macro function (around 10-15cms) whereas the Nikons (5700 especially) can often focus from within an inch of the lens.

I use a Canon 10D for most of my studio work but still keep my old 5700 purely because I'd have to spend around £250 on a Lens for the Canon that could beat the Nikon for it's macro function.

Let me know if you want any samples of the 5700 and I'll dig them out.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

mad_dr: have you looked at the Kenko extension tube set? For about £100 you can turn almost any lens into a macro lens with excellent results.

I've used the full set (35 + 20 + 12mm IIRC) with a 100-400L lens at full zoom - it looks like a howitzer but it can photograph a bug in a tree a couple of metres away

mad_dr

And I thought they just made coffee!

I'll google it later and will have a look at what comes up.

Cheers!

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

http://www.speedgraphic.co.uk/pdfiles/holecat.pdf - page 42

Hoppy

Andy, don't you lose camera-to-lens functions with those extension tubes? And depth-of-field on full-frame 35mm is hard to live with when the image is that big, whereas the much smaller digital camera sensors give inherently greater depth-of-field (zone of sharpness in the picture).

Anyway, as has been said, a digi-cam is clearly the best way to go here. I would just add that a really close focusing distance might not be the complete answer as what you want is a certain amount of magnification, which is not always the same thing.

You want to be able to use the macro setting at the long end of the zoom lens range to give the image size you want, and this should give you enough distance between the camera and the subject for the flash to function properly.

It should be easy enough to test it in the shop.

Richard.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Nope - the lens works exactly as if it were directly attached to the camera. The electrical connections are passed straight through, so you even get AF for all the good it'll do. What does happen is that some light is lost (because it now falls outside the sensor, of course) and I wouldn't believe the f/stop figures either. You do, however, still get accurate metering and exposure.

DoF always falls off with magnification, so yes, a digi with a small sensor is better for that. On the other hand, a DSLR will let you use a smaller aperture for a given noise level - just whack up the ISO - so you get your DoF back that way. What the effect is on sharpness I wouldn't like to say.

For extreme magnification I'm quite the fan of the lens reversal technique I described above; this photo was taken using a 100-400L zoom (at 400mm) with a 24-70L zoom (at 24mm) reversed on the end, plus a 1.4X teleconverter for good measure. This gives a total magnification of roughly 400/24 * 1.4 = 23 times, which is enough to pick out the interconnect on an old microchip (but probably overkill for a bug or watch!).

DoF for that photo was a tiny sliver - it took me ages with a solid tripod and 'helping hands' clamp to hold the chip in place and get a photo anything like in focus. I was using f/8 (a mistake, perhaps) and firing a flash at full power right next to the chip to get enough light onto the sensor. An even smaller aperture would have made the picture too dark - as it was, the shadows of the specks of dust on my sensor were tack sharp indicating a very small true aperture (I think!).

Hoppy

Andy, trick tubes and I forgot you were cheating DoF with a digi-SLR

Agreed, the reversing lens trick is handy, but you will certainly lose you camera-to-lens functions then

Richard.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

You still have camera-to-lens functions on the lens that's attached to the camera, so you still get aperture control and even AF (though there's so little light available by virtue of the magnification that AF doesn't actually work). EOS lenses fall back to maximum aperture when disconnected, which is why you can use one reversed on the end of another lens and actually get some light through it.

Hoppy

LOL Andy I love a bit of DIY image making, too

Here's one I actually got some really nice portraits out of. Take one magnifying glass about 1.5in diameter, and two toilet-roll tubes. Use bodge-tape to fix the glass on the end of one tube, and then get that tube to slide up and down inside the other tube for focusing. Bodge-tape that to your 35mm SLR.

What I ended up with was a lens about` 100mm focal length but producing wonderful soft-focus effects that your can't really get any other way. Lots of flare, obviously, and hoplessly out of focus around the edges, but that all added to the romance.

Oh, and just to keep on-thread, it would focus real close, too

Richard.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Hm... I spend thousands on 'L' quality lenses, when all I really need is a bog roll tube and a couple of magnifying glasses. Off to eBay we go, then...

paulwrxboro

cheers that sounds just what im after do you know what a Nickon 5700 will cost aprox