Camera features for Close up photography
Camera features for Close up photography | ||
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You'll need a digital camera with close-focusing capabilities, and a way to frame your images accurately. Fortunately, those two features are common to just about every digital camera made. Even low-end fixed focus digital cameras with no zoom may have a "macro" setting for close-up pictures, because designing a non-SLR digital camera to shoot close is a real no-brainer. The minimum distance your camera can focus will vary with the focal length and other physical properties of the lens. One way close focus is achieved is to move the lens farther away from the sensor. A 7mm (actual focal length) digital camera lens moved 14mm from the sensor can focus at half the distance of the same lens at 7mm from the sensor. Because the actual focal length of most digital camera lenses is so short, it's relatively easy to design a camera that can move the lens a moderate distance from the sensor, achieving a relatively close minimum focus distance. Cameras with larger sensors and therefore longer focal length lenses for a particular magnification, require greater distances between the center of the lens and the sensor. This is particularly true with digital SLRs. Fortunately, these cameras can be equipped with extension tubes and other aids that provide the necessary distance. The second requirement is a viewfinder that lets you compose your image accurately. Digital cameras that use an optical viewfinder actually provide a slightly different view of the subject than the one the sensor sees. If the optical "window" is directly above the taking lens, you'll see more at the top of the frame at close distances than the sensor sees. If the window is to one side, you'll see more of that side than the lens. Should the viewing window be placed both above and to one side, your actual image will be "clipped" in two directions. This viewing phenomenon is called parallax error. You won't have this problem if you have a digital SLR that allows viewing through the same lens used to take the picture, or if your camera is equipped with an electronic viewfinder, an internal LCD that displays the image from the camera's sensor. Nor will you have parallax problems viewing the image on the LCD display on the back of the camera. Some find the camera-back LCD clumsy to use and difficult to view in bright light unless you use an add-on light shield, but when composing a close-up image, it's preferable to relying on an optical viewfinder alone. Some digital cameras have a composite video out connector that allows displaying the sensor's image on a TV screen or monitor,use the yellow composite video in connector of your TV/monitor. This option may be the best of all for non-SLR users for at-home shooting, as it is big and bright and easy to focus. | ||