TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk
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so my brother is into photography and were looking to get some sundew close up and get good color on my neps. What are some good quality but inexpensive begginer lens's?
cheapest way is by putting some 30 dollar extension tubes between your normal lens and camera.
Autofocus wont work well that way and you will need some more light but you can get very good results with it.
some of the better quality extension tubes will work fairly well with autofocus, the cheap ones often arent set up for autofocus at all.......a decent set of three extension rings should come out to less than $100.....see the set im looking at advertised for $85-90 regularly.....a decent dedicated macro lens is going to run you $350 plus.....
for pot grown plants a lighting issue isnt a big deal....you can move the plant to a table and set up better lighting.....a couple $10 book lights with a flexible shaft are great for getting a lil more light just where you need it.....get a couple table lamps with CFL's(due to heat issues) and shine them through thin white pillow cases or even a white t-shirt will get yah great light that is diffused.....bounce light off of white copy paper.....
great photography on the cheap isnt hard to do.....look at a professional setup and start thinking how you can do the same thing.....it wont be as nice and probably not as user friendly as a professional setup but if you really want to take great pics, so long as you have any half way decent camera, even just a point and shoot, there are ways to get great pics......
and SLR's have an advantage over P&S's in that its impossible to manually focus a P&S which is often important in macro photography.....
i use both, for P&S usually a Canon PowerShot though the shop has a new Fuji FinePix S im going to try out for macro work.....when i use a DSLR its a Canon 40D.......neither kind is perfect for all shooting, which is why i have both......
You should also look at macro filters. I have a set that you can add on top of each other and still get good results. They were only $17 dollars, so if you don't like them, you didn't waste much money. Biggest problems I face is the loss of depth of field and you need to get very close to the subject for it to be in focus.
main point i was getting at though is no matter what your running.....$100 point and shoot or a $2000 DSLR or anything in between......if you can move your subject there is no such thing as a lighting problem so long as you are capable of developing creative solutions.......
dont have a silver light reflector? smooth out some aluminum foil
white light reflector? use bright white copy paper
dont have a ring light? 2 or 3 cheap book lights can get yah pretty close
need better diffused light? white t-shirts over desk lamps on either side of the subject
if you do enough reading and know the kind of equipment that will get you the best results you can work around the expense problem if your creative......
depth of field is an issue in most all macro photography and isnt limited to just macro filters.....though the filters may be worse than other types, i dont know, never used them.....
for the money with a DSLR i would much rather have extension tubes over a macro filter and the reason is pretty simple....i have 3 lenses at the moment that i use with the 40D......a 10-20mm wide angle, a 28-135mm general purpose and a 75-300mm telephoto.....one uses a 58mm filter, one uses a 72mm filter and one uses a 77mm filter......the extension tubes will work with all lenses but the macro filter will not, i will need a different one for each lens.....in the long run the extension tubes will be a better investment and produce a better result overall.......
---------- Post added at 04:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:23 PM ----------
havent decided if im going to buy or make a setup like this for alot of my shooting.......wont be ideal and i will have to use the same sort of tricks listed above for macro but for more normal shots of plants it should be ideal and give me an easily controlled environment
Actually, the /cheapest/ way is to get a $3 jeweler's loupe and just find the right spot to hold it between your camera and the subject. I've got some surprisingly good macro shots this way.
~Joe
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