Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Macro Photography
Exposure
If you feel like spending a lot of money then what you want is a 6x6 cm Rollei 6008. The
120/4 Zeiss Makro-Planar (same lens as for a Hasselblad) will set you back about $3400.
That's right, you could buy a Nikon 105/2.8 macro lens and three N90 bodies for the price of
the Rollei lens alone.
Rollei probably has the most intelligently designed macro system in the world.
I photographed these orchids at left in Hawaii with the 120 Zeiss macro lens, Kodak Gold
100 film (120 size naturally), tripod, f/16 and 1/15th of a second.
Unless you are using close-up lenses, when doing any kind of macro work, you always have to
consider the effective f-stop. Even if you are using the SLR body's built-in meter, which will
correct automatically for light loss, you can't turn off your brain. Why not? Because the effective
aperture affects picture quality.
Taking pictures through a pinhole results in tremendous depth of field but very low sharpness due
to diffraction. This is why lenses for your 35mm camera stop at f/22 and don't go to f/45 or f/64.
View camera lenses provide these smaller apertures for two reasons: (1) the lenses are longer (f/64
on a 210mm lens is not all that small a hole); (2) the negative won't be enlarged very much.
If you're at 1:1 and have selected f/22 on the macro lens barrel, you need to look at the lens markings and/or the close-up exposure dial
in the Kodak Professional Photoguide to learn that your effective aperture is f/45.
If you're using a handheld meter, then you absolutely must use these corrections (e.g., meter says f/22 but you're focussed down to 1:1
so you set f/11 on the lens barrel).
[Note: the modern Nikons, e.g., 6006, 8008, N90, show you the effective aperture in the viewfinder; the F4 does not; Canon EOS
cameras do not. Another reason to go with the Nikon system if you are into macro photography.]
Lighting
A good quick and dirty lighting technique is to use a through-the-lens (TTL) metered flash with a
dedicated extension cord (SC-17 in the Nikon system). A modern handheld flash is extremely
powerful when used a few inches from a macro subject. That lets you stop down to f/16 and
smaller for good depth of field. I sometimes just hold the flash to one side of the subject and have
an assistant hold a white piece of paper on the other side to serve as a reflector. Anyway, you have
enough power in the flash to pretty much use all the diffusion material that you can find. Let the
camera turn the flash off when enough light has reached the film.
Lighting is the most important and creative part of any kind of photography. I've written an entire
book chapter on the subject so I'm not going to try covering it here.
The Samoyed nose at right belongs to Alex. I captured it with a Canon EOS-5, 180/2.8 macro lens, and TTL-metered Canon flash.
Below: a foot recently pulled out of one of those weird sandals with all the bumps. Nikon 8008, 60/2.8 lens, SB-24 lens with SC-17 cord
http://www.photo.net/macro/primer (4 of 8)15/11/2004 6:47:08 PM