Micro photography

There are a number of ways to take close up pictures. The first is to get a lens that is made just for micro work. This is a great option but cost a lot. The next is to get micro filters. These are filters that go on the front of your lens and work like holding a magnifying glass in front of your eye. The plus is this is a cheaper way to get the effect. The down side is you have a very small area in the center that is in focus. The third way is with micro rings. These are rings that mount between the camera and the lens. The upside is you get to use the expensive quality lenses you already have. The down side is you lose auto focus and the view finder gets very dark. It gets dark for two reasons. The first is the extra distance between the lens and the camera body means the light coming through the lens is spread out to create a bigger image. If you thing back to using a microscope you will recall a very bright light below the slide. The second reason it gets dark is I close the aperture way down. This lets in less light but widens the area in focus. In micro photography the area in focus can be measured in Millimeters or less. This makes getting a shot in focus hard because your view finder is to dark to see through and the camera won't auto focus. Or you may end up with one tiny area in focus with everything else out of focus. By closing the aperture you make the area in focus a little bigger. This is a picture you want to use a flash for. However if you are an inch away from your subject the on camera flash would work. I use one of more SB-800 speedlights off camera set next to the object to get enough light. For focus I use a flash light or the modeling light on the flash and move the camera in and out instead of playing with the focus ring. Take a lot to shots and the review on your computer to learn what works well for your camera and style.