Stupid i know but

gibbo46

gibbo46

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Rob
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May seem a few stupid questions but do i need a macro lens to take a shot in macro?
Have put my camera on macro setting and tryed but to no avail.
How far do you stand from the subject?
Sorry about this but im trying my best and it dont seem to be working lol
 
About five feet away should do it ;) Sorry, only joking, can you give details of what camera/lens etc as that would help loads to answer your question properly.
 
Hi - with that lens you will get approx 1:2.5 reproduction at 70mm (1:1 is true macro & 1:2 is half life size) and you will need to be about 38cm away from the subjet.

So set your focus to manual , set the focus to its minimum focus setting and wind out the lens to 70mm and point it at your subject , to focus the image move the camera dont alter the focus ring as this will alter the magnification then take the picture.
 
The short answer I'm afraid is that you can't.

Zoom lenses which have a 'Macro' setting aren't true macro lenses and the desription is extremely misleading. A true macro lens is always a prime and is specifically designed to give at least a life size (1:1) image of the suubject on the film/sensor.

All that happens with a zoom lens with a 'Macro' setting is that when you select this setting all the elements of the lens move forward to enable a closer focusing distance than you would normally be able to achieve, but it wont be anywhere near the close focusing capability of a true macro lens.

Having said that, it's a useful feature to have in a walkabout/general purpose lens, and will probably enable you to get close enough to take close up shots of flowers and larger insects possiubly, like butterflies, but that's probably as good as it's going to get, but how close you'll actually be able to get will depend on the particular lens and how it's designed.

Keep moving closer to your subject and the point at which you can no longer achieve focus will be the closest you can get.
 
Would you be Gibbo from VD & TRC by chance?

In answer no, not true macro but you can still get pretty ok results with normal lenses.

Flick it into manual focus and get on your knees and try to focus as close as you can to your subject. If you have a tripod use it as it will help keep things steady, then you'll get a nice sharp image you can crop to blow up.

If you have a kit 55-200 it would do a better job than the 18-55.

All the best
 
Not sure what vd an trc are mate sorry thanks for the reply and thats where it gets complex for me not sure what ap/f/stop i should be using in manual mode
 
gibbo46 said:
thats where it gets complex for me not sure what ap/f/stop i should be using in manual mode
Click to expand...

Well that's an easy enough one to answer. Depth of field decreases (gets narrower) the closer you get to your subject, so when you get down to extreme close-up you have virtually no DOF to speak of.You'll always need to use a smaller aperture to improve the DOF, but even then, it's likely to be only a centimetre or so. Obviosusly, as you make the aperture smaller, the shutter speed gets longer, so you end up with a situation where you often have to use a tripod or flash.
 
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