This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Books, Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
It is found it strange myself that I missed to write something about the book which I have in hand most of the time. It is actually the first photography book I bought after I got back to holding a camera. Widely recommended in online resources, I got the book from a fellow I know in a local online forum. At first I do not quite enthusiastic with this one, mainly because it is quite old, published in 1987 … way before the age of digital photography. In fact it is correct, all practices and guides are using analog camera and gears which I think have at least two to three newer generations. F3 body and AI-S glasses to name some.
However, what really is the essence of digital cameras more than replacement of film with digital sensor? Everything explained in the book are still valid and workable even in digital age. Not a single page gets wasted just because I hold a D40 instead of the old F3. What about glasses? Well, what an ultra-modern AF-S lens carrying VR technology can do in photographing at somewhere between 2x to 22x life-size magnification?
Instead of using expensive macro lens which can only offer life-size (1x) magnification at its best, John give detail technical advises in using cheaper gears which allow similar (if not better) quality result, and in many cases with amazingly higher magnification ratio, without which you may get forced to crop your photo, with all of the consequences (loosing sharpness, loosing chance for digital refinement, etc). John gave a concise technical reason why investment in macro-lens is not advisable, one of which is that macro-lenses are nothing more than normal lens with built-in extension tube. You may have your own opinion against this, just like I do. Well, advise is advise, you should only take it if you think it worths. I personally think that macro-lens offers significant advantage: ease of use.
Started from more general issues like composition, usage of tripod, and lighting (including flash), impact of using different lenses (i.e. short v.s. telephoto) in macro-photography, John went ahead with details of technical aspects, pros and cons, how-to, and example of using different macro-photography gears. Among those techniques are:
- Diopters.
- Extension tubes.
- Tele-converters.
- Bellows.
- Stacked lenses.
- Reversed lenses.
- Combination techniques (i.e. reversing lens on bellows).
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January 31st, 2008 at 12:33 am
the easiest way to get a great macro photography is by using macro lens. then learn what is the best composition, color balance, and the most important is to keep in mind, what the image will used for. macro is not always meaning a good bokeh and short dof, but how much you can expose the reality of a small world - in art.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:56 am
Indeed. Well, maybe closer to say the most practical way. The best a macro lens can give is life-size. To go beyond without compromising resolution with cropping, it takes more than just a macro lens. At the extreme end. bellows with reversed lens gives 22x life-size.