Close ups

[Shrikant Ingalhalikar]

Dear Sir,

I agree with Dr. Pankajkumar's comments on this subject. Let me share some of my thoughts on close up photography of flowers or similar subjects. Everyone's objective is to get all parts of small objects in sharp focus while shooting from a close range. Achieving the minimum aperture is the only option to get sharpness which is possible with a ring flash. Shadowless images and dark background are other advantages of a close up flash. Synchrospeed of 250 eliminates the need of a tripod. There are some drawbacks of this option (saturation of some colours) and a large number of photographers therefore do not prefer this. Response of some colours and surfaces of flowers/leaves to the flash is unpredictable but the digital cameras have eliminated this limitation. Sharpness with sunlight depends on field conditions but with a flash you can safely forget about light condition. I am attaching a picture (though not very good) where I had faced a lot of difficulty with the colour and the size (5 mm) of the flower. Members may also guess the ID of this rare plant. I have used D300-Nikkor 60 G ED micro lens with a ring flash. The distance from the film plane is 18.5 cm.

I draw a little attention to the geometry in close ups. Firstly the camera must be held in such a way that the film plane (or the sensor)is parallel to the subject in case of flat shaped objects (Butterfly with wings held flat), in case of 3D objects 3 points distributed on the subject should be equidistant from the film plane. Secondly manual focussing should be used so that you can focus at the center of the subject. It is easier to adjust lens to the minimum focus distance and then adjust the camera forward or backward for accurate focussing.

You could also remember to 'make up' the subject by removing dried flowers, leaves or cobwebs around and in the background for the aesthetics of the picture. I have a friend who washes leaves and wipes the flowers with a tissue for duedrops before shooting.

Lastly the choice of the equipment depends on the purpose and the end use of photography. I use photography merely as a medium for illustrations rather than an art.

I will like to know others' views on this.




Shrikant Ingalhalikar
12 Varshanand Society
Anandnagar Sinhagad Road
Pune 411 051.
Tel 91 20 2435 0765.
Fax 91 20 2438 9190.

[Gurcharan Singh]

Two good lectures (Dr. Pankaj ji & Srikant ji) and I am a better student of photography now. I wish we keep on getting such good tips.

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

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[geeta arun]

 

Thanks Shrikantji, for important tips for better macro photography.

Regards,

Geeta Samant.

 

[Dr. Pankaj Kumar]

All kinds of flashes do give different results to the original color
of the flowers. Camera does work wonders with the pictures too. But
there is no harm in editing pictures to bring it to natural colours.
White, red and blue are the colours which are maximum affected by
using flashed. Ring flash may brighten your white flowers. So to avoid
the brightening, you can use a white paper to cover the flash, it
reduces the intensity of the flash, I use it very often to get good
results.
You dont need a very sophisticated camera for good pictures, infact I
have taken some very good pictures using simple coolpix S1 (that can
be bought in < 10,000 rs) and I am a diehard NIKON GUY!!. I remember
Navendu always used D60 with 60mm Nikkor lens, with Vivitar ring flash
and got some extraordinary results, his only drawback was, he never
takes pictures of flowers with leaves, that may not be taxonomically
correct. But he is one of the best young photographers I have ever
met.
Apart from good photograph a good taxonomist can also try to
illustrate their plant with sketches, for better expression of
characters. I will share one post separately with this regard, hope
you all will like it.

Regards
Pankaj

[Gurcharan Singh]

Pankaj ji

While trying to migrate to true macro lens I just learnt about single element close up lenses (which I use presently) and double element close up lenses

At about 3-4x times that cost are double-element achromat close-up lenses, like Canon's 250D and 500D, or Hoya's Close Up Macro Multicoated. These will give much better results, but then the limitation will be the base lens with which they're used. Similar to using extension tubes.

Any experience with these and your comments on these.

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

[Dr. Pankaj Kumar]

Respected Gurcharan Sir,

Both of these lenses which you have mentioned will not give results as
good as a professional macro lens compatible to your camera. These
lenses are nothing but magnifying glasses, you may use more than one
at a time, It brings a buldge in the central area of the image, and
secondly, on the periphery of the image there will be aberration too.
To avoid this you can use lower apertures but with good flash but
still it will not have that quality as that of professional lens.

Just if u wish to check how good your lenses is working, make squares
on inset, on the paper, and take a picture, from as close as you can
get to it. then check in the image whether the squares are looking
like squares, i.e., do they have straight lines or curved?

For your camera model, you have only two options of macro lens from
Sony, but these lenses are too costly (You may check in grey market
for lower price):

1. SAL100M28 - 100mm F2.8 Macro, minimum distance 35cm and image size
will be 100% (59,000/-).
2. SAL50M28 - 50mm F2.8 Macro, minimum distance 55cm and the image
size will be 50% (39,990/-)

"image size will be 100%" - this means, when you focus the image at
the closest distance, what you see in the viewfinder will be 100% of
the actual size of the subject.

A good ring flash which can be used with any of the lenses you have
mentioned as well as the two i suggested will cost around 6000/-
(Vivitar).

Regards
Pankaj

[Gurcharan Singh]

thanks a lot Pankaj ji

I am feeling more confident now. Let me try it from the market.

-- 
Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ 

Regards
Pankaj

[J.M. Garg]

Forwarding again for Id of the picture pl.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1
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[J.M. Garg]

Forwarding again for Id of the picture pl.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shrikant Ingalhalikar <le...@rediffmail.com>
Date: 22 November 2009 14:43
Subject: Close ups
To: indian...@googlegroups.com
Cc: jmg...@gmail.com

--
With regards,
J.M.Garg (jmg...@gmail.com)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1
'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna'
Image Resource of more than a thousand species of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg

For learning about Indian Flora, visit/ join Google e-group- Efloraofindia:http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix