Affordable Macro

Nope, not the latest Apple rowboat (har, har), but macro-photography: shooting stuff from a close distance to make it look really big. Often used in nature close-ups of plants and insects, macro photography can be lots of fun, providing a different perspective on subjects, and is a nice addition to one’s quiver of photographic tools.

To give a bit of the tech background: one characteristic of a lens is its ‘minimum focusing distance’ (MFD). Due to design constraints (cost, size, product marketing), a given lens is made in such a way that it cannot focus closer than a certain distance from the lens, i.e. MFD. (However, at the other end, all lenses are able to focus to infinity.) A lens’ macro capability is described in terms of “reproduction ratio,” which is (size of object image on 35mm film) : (actual size of object). . I.e., a 1:1 ratio means that if you are using 35mm film, a 1cm long beetle will have an image that is 1cm long on the physical negative. A 1:2 ratio means the will have an image .5cm long on the negative. The higher the reproduction ratio, the more detail available.

Macro photography for SLRs is a niche market, and macro lenses usually command much higher prices than their non-macro siblings at the same focal length. Canon has a 100/2.8 USM macro lens that retails at $509 from B&H, Nikon has one in a similar focal length (105mm) with VR, that goes nearly $900 – ouch. So, what’s a fellow to do if he wants to try out macro? Luckily for us, there are two affordable alternatives:
1. Buy a ‘macro body.’
- Pretty much all consumer point-and-shoots these days come with a macro setting. This is one of the most remarkable advantages of modern digicams, that one can switch to macro without having to change lenses. The image quality is not quite as good as on a dSLR of course, but with some of Canon’s cheapest Digital Elphs (Amazon.com is a good source) going as low as the $100 range, this is a much cheaper way to play around with macro than the lens options above.
2. Go retro.
- One of the quirks of the Canon EOS system, is that a variety of other lenses can be used on EOS bodies, via use of adapters. One type of lens that can be used in this manner, are Nikon manual focus (MF) lenses. Yup, you can use Nikon lenses on Canon bodies! (the converse is not true, however). While this is a topic that probably deserves its own post, one of the benefits of this is that Nikon had several micro (Nikon’s name for macro) lens offerings: 55/3.5, 55/2.8, 105/2.8, 200/4, to name a few, which now, since these lenses are manual focus only, are much cheaper than their AF counterparts. One such lens is the Micro-Nikkor P 55mm F3.5 here:

This lens cost me $25 on Craigslist, and it was in pristine condition. It can go to 1:2 normally, and 1:1 with use of an extension tube, which it came with. Taken right at around 1:1, this shot of a quarter I took captures what is possible with a macro lens:

Another thing you’ll notice is the hair-thin depth of field. Since you are so close to your subject, the DoF becomes really narrow, thus macro photography generally requires larger apertures to get the entire object in focus. The high degree of magnification also exaggerates camera movement, so most macro applications also predicate use of a tripod.

There’s more to explore about macro, but hopefully this intro discussion and two possible affordable solutions has been useful/interesting! Also, comment back with some neat macro shots you’ve taken.