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Marvellous Macro - part 5 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

by Mike McNamee Published 01/04/2007

For some lighting arrangements a 50mm lens at 1:1 has such a short working distance that you cannot fit anything other than a ring flash. By way of example, a weevil imaged at 4x magnification on a 55mm lens is inside the filter rim of a Nikkor and requires very special lighting. Specialist scientific macro lighting, for this reason, is often brought to the subject via fibre optics, the only way to fit it in and achieve lighting control.

The quality of the lighting is of equal importance to that used for portraiture, only the scale varies. To a wasp, the head of a cobrahead flash is about the same relative size as a large soft-box to a human subject. For dental and intra-oral medical photography, the only lighting that really works is the ring flash. However, the same lighting on a beetle is truly awful, flat uninteresting and big doughnutshaped hot spots!

As a general rule then you should buy the longest lens you can comfortably hold (a 150mm f2.8, camera and flash is actually quite a weight to carry for many hours). The only drivers to take a smaller lens are cost (they are always less expensive) and working distance. For example, if you have to reproduce artwork (for which the macro lens is the first choice) then you may be constrained by lack of space if you have too long a lens. This is especially so if you have a bespoke copy-stand with a limited height of arm.

One option you should not lose sight of is to use an enlarging lens as a macro lens - let's face it you have probably got no use for it these days anyway! Enlarging lenses are by definition, corrected for close rear conjugates and so they perform spectacularly well if you can put up with not having automatic aperture close down and metering facilities. For copying work they excel and provide an inexpensive solution. In the example shown, a Schneider Componon 100mm f5.6 is attached to a Nikon PB6 Bellows using an adaptor.

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Contact Mike McNamee

1st Published 01/04/2007
last update 09/12/2022 14:56:31

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