Best for close-ups?

crocsnhots · 04-13-04, 12:55 AM

Hey everyone,
I'm looking for a camera that takes amazingly detailed closeups. It should be under $900 Canadian. I really want an SLR but I want more photography experience before I invest $3000 in an SLR camera, lenses and accessories. I need a camera that takes excellent photos for close-ups of insects, spiders and ofcourse reptiles. Alot of the cameras I've looked into, do take beautiful photos but they do not take very good close-ups of things such as snake scales, snake/tarantula eyes, caterpillars, dragon/garden flies etc. It should show every bit of detail and be somewhat user friendly.

So what do you guys (and gals) recommend? Close-up photos taken by that camera to give me an idea of what it's capable of would be nice.

Thanks so much!

P.S. The snow is almost all gone and this herper girl can't wait to get out there!!!

All I need now is an excellent camera.

Big Mike · 04-13-04, 09:59 AM

I would suggest a digital p&s camera with a good macro mode. The Canon A80 has a minimum focus distance of 5cm in macro mode. At that close and with 4MP, you will get some great detail.

You might want to think about a macro ring flash as well. I'm not sure if there is a ring flash for the A series but it wouldn't be hard to find out.

If you want to go with an SLR you can go film or digital, either way you will need more than just a regular lens. You can get macro lenses (they can also be uses for normal shooting). You could get extension tubes to reduce the minimum focus distance of a normal lens. Or you could get close-up dioptre filters that go on the front of a normal lens. With either option, you get what you pay for...so the more you spend, the better the equipment. You can definitely get macro flashes for any SLR. You could get a fairly inexpensive film SLR and some extension tubes for a fairly good price. The close-up filters are not expensive but you loose quality, especially around the edges.

A tripod would be a good idea as well. A camera with a remote shutter release will also help to get sharp photos.

I'd say that a digital point & shot camera is your best bang for the buck when shooting macro. I'd stick with a good camera brand name like Canon or Nikon but you should go to a camera store and try a bunch of cameras out...to see which on you like best.

Hope this helped.

Gregg M · 04-13-04, 10:25 AM

These shots are from a canon A70..... This is just the stock version of this camera...... I ordered some new lenses and better lighting to take photos..... The camera cost $400 USD and the new lenses and lighting cost around $300 usd...... One of the new lenses I am getting is a 52mm close up lens...... I have seen what that camera can do with that lens and it is amazing.... Also a tripod and good lighting make a huge difference......

doenoe · 04-14-04, 03:56 AM

You can also think of buying a macro-lens.
Check out this site www.raynox.com
They got tons of lenses there
Greetz doenoe

crocsnhots · 04-16-04, 11:43 PM

Big Mike,
I would like to stick to a P&S digital camera for now, and buy a digital SLR in a few years. I have a small tripod, but I intend to pick up a larger one this summer.

Gregg M,
Your gabbys are amazingly beautiful, but you see how the detail is a little fuzzy? That is what I am trying to avoid because with smaller targets it just makes them look like a fuzzy blotch. For snakes though most digital cameras will give decent photos from what I've seen.

doenoe,
Thanks for the site, I'll check it out.

Take a look at the following links, these photos are amazingly detailed for such small specimens:
http://www.pbase.com/image/19557708
http://www.pbase.com/image/19557258
(Note both photos are species of or related to dragonflies)
These are the kind of photos I would like to be able to reproduce. (I know they're pretty close-up and detailed but that's what I'm hoping to reproduce)

After seeing what I'm looking for, any digital camera makes/models anyone can recommend?

Thanks~

Gregg M · 04-17-04, 08:18 AM

Like I said, this camera is stock right now..... Monday I will have the new lenses and you will see a huge difference....... I will post a pic as soon as I take one with the upgrades...... I am telling you, the differance will be major.....

C.m.pyrrhus · 04-17-04, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Gregg M,
Your gabbys are amazingly beautiful, but you see how the detail is a little fuzzy? That is what I am trying to avoid because with smaller targets it just makes them look like a fuzzy blotch. For snakes though most digital cameras will give decent photos from what I've seen.

They are nice Gabbys, no doubt. But, the loss of detail is not the cameras fault. You should realize that these forums have a small file size limit for posted pictures when uploaded from a computer.

The first gabby photo is only 9201 bytes...the second is 17719. That is not a lot of information being passed allong in the post pictures, so that is the reason for the blurry and fuzzy look. I have taken some nice shots of my crotes...141,510 bytes happens to be one file size of a macro I took. It needs to be 25,000 or less to upload that pic from my computer, and that is a heavy loss of detail when done. I have a PowerAShot A60, a 2.0 MP camera that is nearly the same as Greggs, just less MP. Takes great pictures with amazing detail...and purchased for $180 US.

All in all, your pictures will not look as great on the web as they do simply taken and uploaded to your computer. If brought in from another hosting site, you may be able to post pics with better detail...I just do not have any webhosting that I would want to pack that much info onto...

crocsnhots · 04-17-04, 04:28 PM

C.m.pyrrhus,
I understand what you're saying about losing detail when they are shrunk for use on the web, here I'll show you a photo of what I'm talking, it just makes it a little easier.

This photo was taken with a friend's finepix A210 a little while back. It has been cropped to remove excess unnecessary photo area but is otherwise unchanged, unresized. We tried forever to get a picture to show up but after 50 photos and none turning out we gave up. The original size on that photo prior to cropping was 884,736 and 2048 X 1536.

The spider in the photo has a legspan of approximately 5-7mm, as you can see it was tiny. The A210 takes amazingly detailed and gorgeous photos of the snakes, no complains there, but when it comes to photographing small subjects it, well to put it bluntly, plain sucks. It can't focus on them. So I guess detail is not the only concern but what is, is that it can focus on such small subjects.

If not detail, what is it in a camera that I need to look for that allows that?

Removed_2815 · 04-17-04, 11:45 PM

C.m.pyrrhus,
I don't think the forum changes the picture parameters, does it? The 25000 byte cap is for pics directly linked from your hard-drive but even still, the forum doesn't alter the photo to squeeze it into the acceptable limit, you have to do that in a photo-editor.
Those photos of Gregg's are from his account, which has a 500k file size limit. My comp says 36kb for the first pic and 45kb for the second one. I think the small loss of detail is from the camera, but the detail will be increased greatly with his new lenses.
I have the same camera, here is a cropped and resized photo of a spider:

Here is a HUGE photo of a Broadheaded Skink straight from the camera. You can get an idea of the capabilities. Also, a tripod makes a world of difference (neither of these photos utilized a tripod).
Crocsnhots, let me know when you get a look at the pic so I can take it off my web space (it's 1.7mb!).
Cheers,
Ryan

crocsnhots · 04-18-04, 02:12 AM

Nice skink, love the colours! You can take the photo off now.

That's an awesome spider, how big was it??
The A210 seems to take horrible shots of anything under a cm or two...

Removed_2815 · 04-18-04, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by crocsnhots
That's an awesome spider, how big was it??

The body is 2cm.
Ryan

crocsnhots · 04-18-04, 03:04 PM

Yeh, nice size, that's probably why the photo turned out, the body on the spider we tried photographing was ah a few mm that's it.

Big Mike · 04-19-04, 08:44 AM

crocsnhots,

Your spider shots is hurting a little from being cropped but it is also out if focus. Like you said, it's hard to focus on something so small. What you have to do is place the camera on a tripod or whatever and set the focus. So that your tiny movements are not affecting the focus.

When focusing so close, the depth of field is very shallow. The D.O.F. is the part of the image that is in focus. This is really where having manual or priority modes will come in handy. If you close down the aperture on the lens (bigger number) the DOF will increase...giving you more leeway to get the subject in focus. The trade off is that the shutter must stay open longer to compensate...therfore the camera must be perfectly still or the slow shutter will cause blur from camera shake.

Gregg M · 04-19-04, 09:05 AM

Also buying the proper lenses will do the trick....... You really can not get super upclose, detailed pics with any stock camera....... If you want to take good pics, you will have to spend money on a decsent camera and them buy exellent lenses....... You can even get good pics with not so good camera as long as you have the right lens......

Removed_2815 · 04-19-04, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by crocsnhots
Yeh, nice size, that's probably why the photo turned out, the body on the spider we tried photographing was ah a few mm that's it.

This Black Widow spiderling is about 4mm:

R