Recommendation for cameras

[Wingman244]

Originally Posted by HogwldFLTR

Not angry at all; just having a conversation. I may however be a bit mad.

Good, thanks on not being angry.

Lots of great advice on this thread. My Gosh - Jocke's pictures are an education in of themselves. I have tried macro photography in the past with very poor results. I have all the equipment, I am going to make a go of it again this weekend. Thanks for inspiring me Jocke!

[J!m]

I learned pre-digital and that background helped me tremendously when I went to digital format.

Moral: don't assume books and guides written for film 30 years ago have no value. Maximize your equipment using skill and knowledge. I sit a lot of watch photos without a macro lens.

History: Pentax K1000, Canon AE-1, Canon F-1 (lots of them), Canon Eos 1v (only three of those), Canon Eos 1d (which I still have but I'm out of that game).

Lenses since the F-1 have been L versions unless they don't make what I want with the nice glass. Save on the body and spend on the glass.

Keep the camera rock solid and learn the grid for f-stop and depth of field at certain iso settings. Print itandkeep it handy. The canon can set it for you ( focus on closest and furthest point, then recompense and it sets f stop and focal point to keep all in that range in focus) but that's cheating!

[falk3n]

Originally Posted by Jocke

Here is a shot I have made with a Nikon D700 and a Zeiss 100mm macro lens.

I have use some HDR effect at everything except the watch which I have put the focus on. The problem is to get the metal at the
watch not overexposed, if so the metal will bleed and looks bad.



After the shot I have add some fog to get a little drama at the pic.



There is no shortcuts, it's training, practice and experiment that will give you a great result.

but thats a full frame camera and super expensive lens :) hehehe


But skill wise, this picture is very sharp and very well composed cheers to you sir

[HogwldFLTR]

Originally Posted by Jocke

Here is a shot I have made with a Nikon D700 and a Zeiss 100mm macro lens.

I have use some HDR effect at everything except the watch which I have put the focus on. The problem is to get the metal at the
watch not overexposed, if so the metal will bleed and looks bad.



After the shot I have add some fog to get a little drama at the pic.



There is no shortcuts, it's training, practice and experiment that will give you a great result.

For the HDR editing what did you use out of curiosity?

[HogwldFLTR]

Originally Posted by HogwldFLTR

For the HDR editing what did you use out of curiosity?

I back channeled Jocke; "filter in Photoshop called Topaz Adjust 5."

[descartes]

I shoot a Nikon 105mm 2.8 macro on a D800 body.

[HogwldFLTR]

Not a great photo but taken from the table in the restaurant across the street from the beach in Hampton Beach.

[Chadridv]

I work in production professionally. Been at it for about 15 years.

Many of the criticisms of the (rather lovely) examples of photography and macro photography, expressed by some here in the name of education seem way off the mark to me.

Yes photography is science and math, but it's also art, and art is not right or wrong. Art is not 2+2=4.

So as for the critiques, from what I can tell most is just the opinions of different enthusiasts.

If you go by the book, the "correct" macro photograph is boring. It's shot with plenty of flat light, with no focal point to be found, it's evidence not art.

IMO, play with focal points, play with backgrounds and backlight. Experiment with shadows and various f-stops.

I will say this though in the name of education. Macro photography requires a lot of light. When working with a high demand of light, you'll have to make sacrifices; open the shutter too long you get trails, open the aperture to large you shallow your depth of field. Of all the sacrifices and different ways to allow for more light, the last should be your ISO (or film speed). Setting your iso too high will make for a grainy/noisy photo and unless that's the look you're going for, IMO it just looks bad. It's as close to right and wrong as it gets.
(This regarding macro photography and preferably on a tripod)

[jesser04]

I shoot with a Nikon D7100, and really like it

[uscmatt99]

Originally Posted by Wingman244

So I am going to look at HogwldFLTR's picture and show you why, unfortunately, an inexpensive camera is not going to give you a very good result. In advance, I am sorry if this offends you but I just want to go over some of the main points.

Focus Point - camera autofocus systems by default focus on the closest object within the frame of the picture. In this case on the front of the watch case. To do macro photography right - you have to be able to select the focus point because your depth of field in general is very narrow. See how the crown and "Rolex" on the dial are completely out of focus. Those in general should be the focus point of the picture. With a DSLR this is pretty easy to set.

Sharpness - the picture in general if very soft with no sharp focus. It is flat. the lens on the camera is just never going to be able to provide you a sharp shot. The different between a point and shoot camera and a DSLR with a $1,000 macro lens really shows up here. You need to pay for a good lens to take a sharp photo - no way around this.

Dust - Macro photography will show every dust particle on your watch - even if it looks clean to you. You will need to buy some brushes to get all the dust off. You will take a shot and see dust you did not know was there, and have to clean, clean and re-clean it.

Cheap cameras have very limited Dynamic Range. That is why the white areas are blown out (all detail is lost) and the dark areas are too dark. In general with a DSLR you will probably need to bracket your shots (take several pictures at different exposure levels ) and then put back together in Photoshop.

Background - choose your background carefully and be mindful of the reflections on the watch. Do you really want the text from the book showing on the side of the case of the watch? The reflections need to compliment the shape of the watch and add to it not distract from it.

Sorry if this offends you, I mean it as a educational tool.

This is a fair critique, but just to clarify on a few points, mostly for others reading the thread, as more experienced photogs are familiar with this stuff.

Focus point- Like Jocke, my close-up lens is a Zeiss 100mm f/2.0 lens. I have an extension tube that gets it to 1:1 life size, but most of our watch photos are in fact not macro but close-ups. A manual focus lens with live view focusing is the most accurate way to nail the photo. Most macro lenses don't have focus shift, so you can focus with the aperture set to f/2.0, then close down the aperture for the photo.

Sharpness- I disagree somewhat. You will get more "apparent" sharpness on web photos with a cell phone shot. The smaller sensor yields a greater depth of field (what we see as in focus) than a large sensor, in general, depending on other factors of course. For example, more will appear sharp and in focus with my iPhone than my Zeiss on a 24mp sensor even at f/16 or f/22 unless I'm doing a straight on shot of the dial or something. To get more in focus when up close, you need a very controlled setting, such as a macro rail, multiple pics, and focus stacking software.

Dust- Agreed.

Dynamic range- Agreed to an extent. If you control the lighting well enough and shoot in RAW, anything from a Nikon 1 mirrorless sensor (same size as the Sony RX-100 sensor) has enough DR unless you have a hard reflection off the metal of the watch. You just have to expose the shot and look at the histogram to make sure you're not blowing highlights.

Background- Agreed.

One other thing that bugs me is chromatic abberation. This is false color introduced in the picture due to optical design limitations. All lenses have it to a degree except very expensive super apochromats. It can be red and green at the edges of in-focus parts of the photo, common on cheaper lenses. Or it can be magenta and green in the out of focus parts of the photo, which even the mighty Zeiss suffers from until stopped down to f/4-5.6. Once you start noticing it, you can't stop It distracts me in movies and photos. Fortunately you can control it through software and by closing the lens aperture down in many cases.