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Lens comparison for macro work

Started Feb 20, 2022 | Questions thread
gardenersassistant Veteran Member • Posts: 9,656
Re: "Macro Lens" ... "Macro" ... too broad a term

Another very interesting and substantive post.

RazorSharpWO wrote:

John K wrote:

RazorSharpWO wrote:

I also agree with John's assessment that light is more important than gear.

This is especially true when you're shooting "a single image" @ f/8-f/16 ... or beyond.

Agreed, but do not discount light quality with respect to stacking.

I don't believe I "discounted" anything 🤔

In fact, I would say I'm more meticulous when it comes to "light quality" than most, especially with stacking, but really in any context. To the extent I won't even bother to take photographs the moment the sun comes out ... how many people can say that?

Not me! For flowers etc I much prefer it when the sun is out, whether for single-capture shots or (in my case hand-held) close-up focus stacks. (I like the varied play of light effects I can get, on subjects and backgrounds, in sunny conditions.)

For wildlife photography, I am either shooting pre-dawn, on overcast days, or after the sun disappears ... which means before most people wake up ... or after most go home for the day.

Different again!  With invertebrates, since flash is my dominant light source, it doesn't make any difference what time of day or night I do my photography, and similarly for the ambient light conditions (and, to a very large extent, breeze or wind conditions). Rain stops me, but soon after rain is excellent, especially for snails and slugs (and water droplets too of course, but I don't do much of that).

There are so many ways to tackle close-up/macro. What a delight it is to explore various of them. As a possibly odd example of that, I had a session in the garden today photographing flowers with a setup that is distinctly suboptimal in several regards compared to the setup I usually use for flowers. It made for a nice change and a bit of a  challenge.

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