Talk:Macro photography

Coins — an overexplanation?

Sorry, but isn't all the coin story in the leading paragraph an overexplanation? It doesn't seem of much use (it's an encyclopedia, not a textbook) and the useful information tends to get lost in it... — Pt _(T) 01:01, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What would you prefer? It's possible to move that to Magnification or to create Magnification (photography) or cut it out entirely. Or maybe there are other possibilities too? Fg2 02:18, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't mind the coin example, but I think informal second person is a bit awkward for an encyclopedia ("For example, suppose you take a macro photograph of a coin on film"). Any ideas on how to rework that? Uttaddmb 01:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I gave it a try. Feel free to work on it some more. Fg2 02:09, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

I rewrote the intro. I removed an awful lot of text that read more like a story than an encyclopedia article, and explained the concept several times in different ways. That's good if people don't understand at first, but I agree about useful info getting lost, and that's a lot of reading for people who understand the first time.

What caught my attention as needing to be changed, was the part about it being a requirement for the camera to be able to focus to 1:1 - this is misleading. Cameras don't focus, lenses do; the lens collects light being reflected at it, and projects this onto the sensor ( film or digital ) inside the camera. Modern cameras have autofocus, which tells the lens where to focus, but (1) the lens is still "doing" the focus by moving internal glass elements, and (2) most macro photographers use manual focus, even with AF cameras.

If people don't agree with removing much of the text, it can be reverted, but I feel the camera vs lens being able to focus to 1:1 is an important distinction, and should be kept.

ForrestCroce 22:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Macro

I'm curious: why macro? Shouldn't it be micro photography? See Macroscopic.

Indeed, one manufacturer calls its lenses "micro" even though the most common term in the industry is "macro." It's a branch of photography between photomicrography and ordinary photography. I guess the objects are macroscopic --- it doesn't require a microscope to see a coin or an insect, for example --- so perhaps that's why the term arose? Certainly, I don't know why it's called "macrophotography," but that is the most widely used expression. The article macroscopic bears this out, as it encompasses things as small as a millimeter. Fg2 02:22, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It's just one of those terms that evolved into a confusing use of the word. Sort of like how the word "shutter" can mean the thing that blocks light from hitting the film or chip, but "shutter" can also mean the button you push to take a photograph. While "micro" would probably make more sense, it's forever engrained into the language of photography, and even has its own technical definition: "macro" in photo optics means "life-size magnification" or 1:1, ie the subject being the same size on the film plane as in reality. Which is a difficult trick for a lens to do, costs two stops of light, and changes depth of field from being 1/3 in front of the subject and 2/3 behind, to evenly split. ForrestCroce 22:05, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Gallery Format

i think it will be good to put all the five images in gallery format (for example of gallery format see hibiscus) --vineeth 05:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. The hibiscus article has very little flow text and lots of images, it makes sense there. But this page has much more text to support less images. --Dschwen 08:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Is Image:IMGP4550.JPG really useful for this article? -- Smial 18:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Lens nomenclature convention

I just bought a pack of three macro screw-in lenses, and they all have markings on them ranging from +1 to +4. What does this mean? Are they standard numbers that mean the same thing to everybody? Is it worth including in the article? I even have a table that came with the lenses, but since I'm new to photography it's a bit confusing. Thanks. -W0lfie 02:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't know what those numbers mean. I'm no expert photographer though. Are they to do with the macro magnification? Does the table provide any clues? Imroy 04:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I asked on the Deviantart forum, and the answer is that they're probably dioptre numbers. Does that help? Imroy 08:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Imroy, I think that's right. Looking at the numbers in the table, they follow an inverse relationship to the sum. But you only see the relationship if you add the +1, et al. to the original dioptre of the lens. Thanks for your help. Is this sort of thing pertinent to the article? --W0lfie 23:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW. What I have are close-up lenses. Not a true macro lens. They help the camera focus on the close up things. That could help explain the dioptre number being on there.--W0lfie 00:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

So are they seperate lenses (attaching to the lens mount on the camera), or do they attach to the filter thread on the front of an existing lens? If they're the latter then they could help to obtain a macro-like magnification factor. Imroy 10:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

What you bought are dioptric filters. If they screw in to the front of the lens, they refocus the light coming into the lens in a way (1) it can accept and project toward the film plane, and (2) increase magnification. This comes at the price of infinity focus; you can't use them, say, for landscapes or sports photography, because your camera won't be able to focus at normal distances with them on. ( Which is the advantage of a "macro lens" compared to a dioptric filter ) The numbers refer to the "strength," or how much magnification they give you, but even though I've got years of experience at photography ( see my photos - mostly landscape ) I've never used this type of filter. So I don't know what the numbers are measurements of, but I do know that by "stacking" the filters you can go beyond 1:1, or shy of it. ForrestCroce 22:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

The number gives the diopter of the lens and is equal to the inverse of the focal length in metres of the lens. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.212.21.22 (talk) 14:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Real Macro

Wouldn't it make sense if the sample images were actually representative of results obtained with a real macro lense, projecting 1:1 image on to the sensor, and not just from a camera marketted as such, these photos are very nice but at least two of them seem more like close-ups than macros--80.6.85.54 01:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Insensitive image choice

Please remove the image of the spider, which is disturbing for many people. It is completely off topic, and there are any number of other subjects that could be used. I for one will not be able to read this article now. Thank you. Golfcam 23:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

You may wish to read the disclaimer before looking at anything on Wikipedia. The image demonstrates the subject of the article well. ^(H) 00:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

All the example photos here are disturbing to me and although they demonstrate macro photography, I'm sure a picture of a flower or something [flowers usually represent the macro function on cameras] would work equally well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.176.100.22 (talk) 04:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand the Wikipedia needs to be accurate, which is why I avoid insect-related articles, but there's no need for articles on photography [Macro photography, Depth of field] to be illustrated with something that is so likely to disturb someone. 98.228.92.156 (talk) 18:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Sensitive viewer, not insensitive image: Nothing is "likely to to disturb". You are assigning active responsibility to an inanimate object. "You are likely to become disturbed when you experience insects or images of insects," puts the responsibility where it belongs, with you. Apparently you decline employment in the sciences. Fine. This is an encyclopedia, not a comfort zone for people afraid of the sciences. Please do not ask or expect the rest of the world to reduce their curiosity to your level of fear. However, you may want to explore the beauty in the images of things usually unseen -- the whole purpose of macro photography. Yes, they look like scary monsters. As we probably do to them. peterblaise (talk) 12:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Displayed lenses

I think that there should be pictures of "more commonly" used macro lenses, e.g. the Canon 100mm or the Nikon 105mm. Y4kk 21:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Sensor Size

I think we should change the first sentence to include the word "crop" because the word describes the process concisely and it is very commonly understood by even the most un-informed photographer.

Macro Coupling

Most cameramen would have lenses in 18mm and 300mm size so they can easily get 16.7 X magnification. 50mm reversed over 200mm makes this technique look very limited so I edited the numbers.

Also a long lens (200mm and more) are quite sturdy. Lenses like 18mm are quite light and can easily be reversed on such a well built lens. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.1.235 (talk) 04:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Macrographic

Hi there, I found this article written as marketing gobbledegook for macrographics.com, and rewrote it on the basis of the use of the term I could find on Google. However, do people think this should simply be a redirect to this page? Or possibly a merge as a "use in materials science" section in this article? Tim Vickers (talk) 20:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Macro vs. Micro

The article says, Using a special-purpose lens called a macro lens (perhaps confusingly, some manufacturers call it a micro). Does anybody other than Nikon use the term micro? Could this be simplified to, Using a special-purpose lens called a macro lens (Nikon calls it a micro lens)? -- RoySmith (talk) 19:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

History of Macro Photo

Is there anything about the history of macro photograpy on Wikipedia? Is it maybe in a different article? This might be usefully integrated somewhere:

Mr. Goro, whose surname was originally Goreau, photographed many aspects of scientific advances. He invented macrophotography, making visible the world that lies between the microscope and the naked eye.[1]

I'm still looking for more information, and any help would be greatly appreciated. Scribeoflight (talk) 15:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

macrophotography or photomacrography

The Oxford Companion to the Photograph says the correct term to denote close-up or photography involving magnification upto 20x is photomacrography and NOT macrophotography. It further states that macrophotography denotes "making of giant prints". The link is [here], but access is not free.

Citation details: Graham Saxby "photomacrography" The Oxford Companion to the Photograph. Ed. Robin Lenman. Oxford University Press 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Bristol Libraries. 19 January 2009 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t207.e1213>

Unhelpfully, every other source seems to use the wrong (according to Oxford) definition.Brittanica seems to come very close to making the distinction [here], but not fully there.

Any more light on this?Mahadevan Subramanian (talk) 12:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Exemplars

I have added details from forensics to show how powerful macroscopy can be in practice. Further examples of the utility of the method would help improve the article. Peterlewis (talk) 06:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Sensor size versus real size

How do you convert the sensor size to life size (example when viewing on a monitor/printed)? For example on the 5 cent coin: the E in Cent is 1,5 mm real life and 16cm on my monitor giving a magnify scale of 100. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.243.152.116 (talk) 12:50, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Canon 5:1

Just a note : the phrase about the Canon 5:1 lens, Some macro lenses, like the Canon MP-E 65 mm f/2.8, can achieve even better magnification, up to 5:1 macro, bringing the structure of small insect eyes, snowflakes, and other minuscule but detailed objects, can be found on this page. Did Mr. Trott copy what was in the wiki article or was it the other way around ? zubrowka74 17:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Add on lens types

Not yet mentioned: the 2 most accessible add-on lenses for macro work are

1. hand held magnifying glass
2. lens element taken from scrap optics

No coupler is involved, its just held over the lens end to allow very close focussing, and hence macro images. Tabby (talk) 13:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

The article needs a photograph a generic macro lens

And not only special cases like bellows, magnification lenses, retro-ing. The MPe, being a special case, is actually way too prominent. --84.130.182.86 (talk) 16:21, 15 November 2011 (UTC)