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One area that has really benefited from the digital SLR (single lens reflex) revolution has been close-up, or macro, photography. Although digital cameras of any sort make close-up pictures fairly easy, you always have the problem of trying to figure out whether you framed your picture properly — and whether it's in sharp focus. Tiny LCD displays are often difficult to view, especially under bright lighting conditions. With a digital SLR, though, you're always looking through the same lens used to take the picture (unless you choose to view the LCD on the back of the camera). Digital SLRs are designed for bright, easy viewing and focusing of your image.
Defining macro photography
The first thing to do as you begin your exploration of close-up photography is to get some jargon out of the way:
- Close-up photography: A close-up is generally considered to be a tight shot of a single person (say, only the face and shoulders) or another object of similar size. It's okay to refer to close-up photography for what you do with your digital camera. That's a term that most people, even photographic neophytes, understand.
- Microphotography: Microphotography results in microphotographs: that is, microfilm images. You wouldn't apply this term to pictures taken through a microscope although it is sometimes (incorrectly) used that way.
- Photomicrography: This is the correct term for taking pictures through a microscope. Although photomicrography is chiefly done by scientists and researchers, it can also be a fun activity for digital photographers if you have the special equipment needed to hook up a digital camera to a microscope. You generally need a higher-end digital camera and some specialized gear to capture the images.
- Macro photography: Generally, macro photography is considered any picture taken from about 12 inches or less from the subject, down to half an inch or even closer. A macro photograph is not a huge picture (the opposite of a microphotograph) but rather a normal-sized photo of a tiny object that has been made to appear large. You might not even be able to recognize common objects when enlarged in a macro photograph.
Advantages of macro photography
Digital cameras and macro photography were made for each other. In many ways, digital cameras can be far superior to an ordinary film camera when it comes to taking close-up pictures. Consider these advantages:
 | - Close-focusing lenses: Digital camera lenses are ideal for focusing up close. Macro photos are made with any camera by moving the lens farther and farther away from the film (or sensor, in the case of a digital camera). Film cameras require moving the lens quite a ways out to get a decent macro effect. For example, a 50mm lens on a 35mm single lens reflex camera (or a digital SLR with a full-size sensor) must be moved 4 inches out from the film to get a life-size (1:1) image. In contrast, an 8mm lens on a digital camera with a small sensor, roughly the equivalent of the 50mm lens on an SLR, needs to move only a total of about 5/8 of an inch to provide the same magnification. Clearly, close focusing is much easier to incorporate into a digital camera.
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The size of the final image at any given distance varies depending on the zoom setting of your lens. That is, an image taken from 6 inches away at the wide-angle setting might be one-fourth the size of one taken from the same distance at the longest zoom setting. Comparing the amount of magnification is more useful. For example, a 1:1 image is exactly the same size in your camera whether taken from one inch away with the wide-angle setting or six inches away with the zoom setting.
- Easy framing of your image: Virtually every digital camera features an LCD display that shows almost exactly what you'll get in your finished photograph. (The LCD display might trim a bit of the edges from the image, but getting more than you expected is far superior to getting less.)
 | Inexpensive point-and-shoot film cameras, if they have macro capabilities at all, don't show you exactly what your image will look like. You need to get an SLR film camera if you want the capability that's built in to many of the least expensive digital cameras. Of course, if you own a digital SLR, you get the same kind of framing in an all-electronic package. Cameras with an electronic viewfinder are also easy to use for framing close-ups. |
- Immediate results: Close-up photography can be tricky, and the last thing you want is to have to wait for your film to come back from the photo-finisher to know whether your pictures came out. With a digital camera, you can review your results on the LCD display immediately, delete bad shots, and keep taking pictures until you get exactly what you want.
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