Please tell us about your cameras

[WSGR]

I might have posted in the wrong place. if so, hope the administrators help me out.

I've been trying to buy a decent camera to photograph my plants VERY VERY VERY CLOSE UP!

A lot of you guys have fantastic, fabulous and stunning photos and of course, beautiful subject matters and I have been hooked despite being baffled by all the stringy Latin names which are impossible to pronounce or memorise.

Any way, I would love to find out more about your cameras and lens .. Please, please, please ..

Thank you, thank you and can't thank enough in advance.

[Maggi Young]

There's  a thread on the  forum which may help you - http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=54.0
It's  called
PHOTOGRAPHIC THREADS: camera queries, any photo tech stuff! ...... and  I think you  may find  a  good start  there!

[WSGR]

  That's why we need you! Thank you! Will read it later.

[Tristan_He]

For me the Olympus TG series is excellent for macro, as good as my DSLR and a lot lighter. Takes underwater photos too. Only drawback is the autofocus which is a bit iffy - but maybe they have fixed this in the newer TG-6 (mine is a TG-4).

Best, Tristan

[WSGR]

Tristan_He

Thank you. Good cameras really enhance our enjoyment of flowers! I've read about this model.

[ian mcdonald]

I think the photographer is perhaps more important to good photos. than the camera. I have been taking photos. of wild flowers since the 1970s. None of my photos. are all that good. The main reason is, I don,t take enough time to compose the picture properly. My photos. are usually "record" shots, as a result. A tripod is a necessity to avoid movement. I do not use flash as I think it gives a poorer image. The advantage of modern cameras is, you can see the result straight away and delete the poor ones. In the "old" days when using colour slides, we had to wait about two weeks for the slides to come back from the laboratory before we could throw them away. Something I never did was to attend photography lessons. Maybe this would be worth considering. I now use a Bridge camera which has the advantage of a range of uses, from macro to telephoto but my problem is that there are so many switches and adjustments that I cannot remember which does what. I find that small subjects are best taken when lying down and using elbows as the tripod to steady the camera. A waterproof cover is useful for this. At the end of the day I suppose it comes down to what you want from the photograph. For a professional result take plenty of pictures using different angles and camera settings (time consuming). A better solution may be to grow plants in pots and make a studio setting so the lighting and angles can be adjusted to suit the subject. This is displayed in orchid photos. shown on the Forum. There is no better exercise than practice. A colleague of mine takes very good Macro images of insects using an Olympus and Macro lens.

[WSGR]

Food for thought. Have to say those orchids in a still environment usually look fab! Having used my little Samsung, I have to say it lets in quite a bit of light and it seems to be its sensor is much better than the new Samsung that I've got. Sadly, like Toshiba laptop, Samsung camera not those on the phones, is a dying art form.

[Yann]

I use MFT Olympus e-m1 ii and Panasonic G9, coupled with a 60mm eq. 120mm macro lens.
Perfect light combo, you can buy on ebay an e-m1 mark i for let say 260/300€ and the lens for 250€.

It's cheap compared to full frame and enough to share photos on internet.

However if you're looking for beautiful depth of field a larger sensor is needed. As Ian mentionned the photographer is the best tool to manage
You can produce pretty nice shots with any camera nowdays, managing lights is the key for macro shooting.

Of course if you want to photography birds or animals you'll need a good focus tracking, Sony are the best at that game but imho they lack the ergonomy of other brands such as canonikon or the Lumix G series.

If you don't want to change lens or bring heavy combo i would suggest using a bridge such as FZ1000 or FZ300. Manual focus and macro mode are nice features offered. FZ1000 is now selling less than 450€ on marketplaces. FZ200/300 are cheaper but smaller sensor are noisy. Canon bridge produce better colors but don't offer such features the Panasonic do.

Talking about Samung, the NX1 is still one the best mirorless produced and can be bought for few buckets....without any warranty as Samsung don't produce anymore cameras.

[WSGR]

 canonikon That makes me chuckle!

I have bought a Samsung NX but I need a lens 60mm, as you said. I think I'm going down that route.

Really love my little Samsung, but the lens won't do as told!

[David Lyttle]

I use a Nikon dSLR. Nikon keep producing models with higher specs and I keep buying them! That aside I need high quality images for publication etc and I find with a dSLR I can get an acceptable image under most conditions. I carry two lenses; a16-35 AF Nikkor and a 105 AF micro Nikkor. I use a tripod in the field as my present camera is very unforgiving wrt any vibration or movement. That means I carry around a lot of glass and it is heavy but I get photos that otherwise I could not get. I also carry an Olympus TG-5. I have found it a bit frustrating in terms of the image quality it delivers especially in landscape photos. However you can use it in the rain and carry it in your pocket. You need to turn off some of the automatic functions ie flash that are built in to it and adjust the exposure settings to get decent results. I find it is hard to hold it steady when pressing the shutter button. Focusing on the area you want is not always easy- I don't know if it has a focus lock but this is not a lot of use if you are hand holding it. It is a good camera for close up of flowers etc as it you can get very close. It also has focus-stacking but to use this you also need a tripod.

Many of my friends now just use their phones. The latest phones have some pretty awesome capabilities but the results are more dependent on the algorithms in the software rather than anything the photographer does.

So there are no hard and fast rules; it all depends on what sort of images you want and how much control you want over the process.

[WSGR]

I always want a Nikon! I would like to know if you take really CLOSE up photos as that's what I need. Very close up so that you can see the markings in tongue of a penstemon Mother of Pearl. Of the furry back of a butterfly. More or less macro photography. What pixel would you recommend for this purpose and what lens do you people use for such close up scrutiny please?

[David Lyttle]

I always want a Nikon! I would like to know if you take really CLOSE up photos as that's what I need. Very close up so that you can see the markings in tongue of a penstemon Mother of Pearl. Of the furry back of a butterfly. More or less macro photography. What pixel would you recommend for this purpose and what lens do you people use for such close up scrutiny please?

I have two Nikkor lenses for macro photography. Both are capable of giving 1:1 reproduction ratio ie at the closest focusing distance the image is reproduced at life size on the sensor. However it is not quite that simple The resolution of the image depends on the size of the sensor ie 1/2 frame for DX models or full frame on FX models ( full frame image size = 35mm negative or slide). At higher resolutions you can see more detail and can reproduce the image at higher magnification without losing the detail.
Here is an image of Lamium flowers taken with a Nikon D800 camera using a 60mm micro Nikkor lens resized down from 6.6 MB 134 KB to allow it to be posted on the forum. In resizing down you lose a lot of the fine detail.


Here is part of the same image cropped without resizing down.



Here you can see all the detail which is approximately what you would see with a 10x hand lens. This all comes a a price camera + macro lens + computer with enough RAM memory to process the very large files these cameras generate. I would not suggest getting an expensive system first off. I have upgraded my gear as my photographic skills have improved. Second hand gear is always worth considering, lenses especially, as they tend to retain their value and can be used on multiple different camera bodies. Camera bodies deprecate very rapidly.

[WSGR]

My Toshiba is powerful enough even though I bought it about 10 years ago. I can do photoshop in it. Yes, very expensive. PM me your pain! LOL! Got to go. Would love to know more and I love the pic flower with fur bits. That really gets me excited. No pun intended! I will come back later and google and feel your pain in the pocket!

[Tristan_He]

Here are some macro shots with my £300 compact.



Interior of a violet flower



The centre of an auricula.



Part of an Erythronium anther.

[WSGR]

Tristan: Very interested. What make is it please? And can I have a photo of you camera please? Thank you so much. Seems to be the thing I want. Don't you think?