Macro experience?

[xxpinballxx]

anyone here want to let me in on how to get all the coins in focus on this?
Is there a link here that someone has to teach me more about macro...

[Teewinot]

Hey xxpinballxx,

For what it's worth, I think the shot is still cool despite the fact that not all the coins are in focus.

The first thing that comes to mind with the focus issue is your aperture. Did your camera choose the aperture, or did you? If you make your aperture smaller (like f/8, f/11, or more) then you'll get more depth of field and therefore, more in focus. You might also consider focal length. Since I'm not an expert in this area, I checked my photography book and there's an example where one macro shot has shallow DOF and the other shot (same subject) has a bit more DOF. The difference is in the focal length because the aperture was the same in both shots. In this case, 75mm at f/5.6 achieved more DOF (but the photographer couldn't get that close), while 300mm + 12mm extension tube at f/5.6 achieved a shallower DOF (but also really nice close focus, which is what the author was demonstrating in the first place). Does that make sense? I'm still trying to grasp this myself, hence the roundabout way of explaining it. Hope this helps! Maybe an 'expert' can chime in and help us both!

[clockdoc]

Hi,
I'm no expert either but will share what I know about macro's and close-up photography. If you could tell me a little more of the technical details I may be able to help more (focal length of lens, distance from subject, aperture, auto or manual focus, etc.) Having said that, the closer you are to the subject, the less your depth of field, even at very small apertures. What you might try here is to get farther away from your subject and while still in the "macro" mode on your camera, experiment with the increase in depth of field using the telephoto portion of your lens (assuming it was a zoom lens). You may have to resort to moving well away from the subject and use the telephoto power alone (no macro).
For some exceptional images, go to Webshots ( www.webshots.com ) and search for "perfect focus". The author has several examples of combining the sharpest portions of several images either through Photoshop or other software that serves that purpose. The camera he used would take a three-image burst and vary the focus ever so slightly between shots. Then he would recombine the sharpest parts of the three images.
I look forward to your test results when you have had time to experiment with the shot again. Thanks for your question.

[jiminyClickit]

xxpinballxx,

With a Fuji FP S3100, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/2 sec (handheld), 6mm (Macro mode), -0.6 comp, medium flash, focussed on middle coin:

[wulf]

Jiminy - your hand-holding shows! DoF is definitely wider though.

Back to the original picture you can see how narrow the DoF is. You have three choices:

(a) Shallow DoF can look cool... live with it and pretend it was what you wanted all along!

(b) Do some of the things that increase DoF: use a smaller aperture (bigger f/number), shorter focal length or get further away from the subject.

(c) Adjust the angle. The DoF is a narrow plane - at those settings, it is just over half a cent wide. If you move the camera so you are looking down from above (or at least nearer a 90 degree angle) you can have the front sides of all the coins sitting in that plane rather than being bisected by it. Take advantage of the fact that coins are flat - flowers and other objects with more dimension can be trickier because there is no angle that will put everything in the "sharp" slice of space.

Wulf