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What is Macro photography?

Macro photography is close-up photography. The classical definition is that the image projected on the “film plane” (i.e., film or a digital sensor) is close to the same size as the subject. Lenses designed for macro are usually at their sharpest at macro focus distances and are not quite as sharp at other focus distances.

What is a macro lens? My lens has MACRO written on it?

Macro photography is the somewhat confusing name for closeup photography. Just as the human eye can only focus up to a certain distance (a distance which moves alarmingly further away with age), not all lenses can focus as closely as others. Most lenses are designed to focus up to a metre or two with long telephoto lenses having much longer minimum focussing distances than that.

Now this obviously isn’t going to help you if you want to take a super closeup of a small flower – you need a much shorter minimum focussing distance. Basically you want to be able to fill the frame with your small subject. And another concept comes in – the magnification factor. Traditionally, true macro photography refers to 1:1 photography and smaller. In other words, a lens with 1:1 magnification is able to image an area as small as the exact size of the image format in question. In the case of 35mm film this means an area of 24x36mm in size. Sometimes magnification is written as a decimal factor, such as 0.25x or 1.0x.

Unfortunately, lens manufacturers tend to throw around the word “macro” with cheerful abandon as a marketing gimmick. The fact a lens has MACRO printed on it basically means nothing, and you have to look closely at the lens specs. If a lens can do 1:1 or 1:2 photography then it’s a real macro lens, optimized for closeup photography. It may also be designed with a flat field so it can be used to take photographs of flat objects like stamps without focus problems. Lenses that can only reach 1:4 or whatever can’t take really close-up pictures.

True macro lenses are generally of much higher optical quality than ordinary lenses and usually cost more. They are also usually optimized to take photographs of small flat objects with even focus across the surface – flat field. They’re still a good buy if you don’t do a lot of macro photography, however. You can always use them for regular photography as well – they just have the bonus that they can focus much closer than ordinary lenses can.

Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina make excellent single focal length (prime) macro lenses. If you’re using a system other than Canon or Nikon, these may be better quality than your own manufacturer’s lens. If you’re using Canon or Nikon, you might be able to save some money, at the expense, perhaps, of slightly less rugged mechanical construction. Among the three companies, Tamron historically has produced the best macro lenses.

• Sigma_70macro_canon
• Sigma_70macro_nikon
• Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 DI 1:1 Macro Lens for Canon
• Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 DI 1:1 Macro Lens for Nikon
• Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 DI 1:1 Macro Lens for Minolta/Sony
• Tokina AT-X 100mm f/2.8 PRO D Macro Lens for Canon
• Tokina AT-X 100mm f/2.8 PRO D Macro Lens for Nikon
• Tamron SP 180mm f/3.5 Di LD (IF) 1:1 Macro Lens for Canon
• Tamron SP 180mm f/3.5 Di LD (IF) 1:1 Macro Lens for Nikon

Exposure

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 a 35mm film camera stop at f/22 and don’t go to f/45 or f/64. Large format 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.

Lighting

A good quick and dirty lighting technique is to use a through-the-lens (TTL) metered flash with a dedicated extension cord (Nikon SC 29 off-camera flash cord or Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord 2). 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. You can 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. If you want a softer light, you will have enough power in the flash to use almost any kind of diffusion material. The TTL meter in the camera will turn the flash off when enough light has reached the sensor.

Focus

With a depth of field of around one millimeter for precise macro work, camera positioning and focus become critical. If you have a good tripod and head, you’ll find that you have at least 10 controls to adjust. Each of them will move the camera. None of them will move the camera along the axis that you care about.

That’s why people buy macro focusing rails, e.g., Adorama Macro Focusing Rail,  These are little rack and pinions capable of moving the entire camera/lens assembly forward and back. You use the tripod to roughly position the camera/lens and then the macro rail to do fine positioning.

Ok… so what lens?

Best Lenses for Canon EOS (price no object)

So here are the top 20 lenses based on user ratings with no regard to cost (note that only lenses with 10 or more ratings are listed)

UPDATED: December 2009

You will find lists and reviews for Nikon on google… but generally lens like:

Nikon 60/2.8 AF macro lens
Nikon 105mm AF Micro
Nikon’s 55mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor

should be capable of giving you some decent macro shots!

Further reading / resources and credits:

• http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Macro-photography-119
• http://photo.net/learn/macro/
• http://photonotes.org/articles/beginner-faq/lenses.html
• http://www.kevinwilley.com/l3_topic05.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/21/25-beautiful-macro-photography-shots-photos/