tree blooming.

[Rhiannon Robins]

Two questions, is this considered macro? I was not sure. and also is there too much 'temperature'?



Shot with sony cybershot H55
14.1 MP

[wulf]

It certainly isn't a macro shot or even particularly close-up. I am ambivalent about whether the standard definition of macro (1mm in real life = 1mm on the film / sensor) is still useful in the digital realm (given that viewing on screen introduces a further level of magnification). However, as a rule of thumb for this subject, I would suggest that a close-up image would see one of the flowers almost filling the frame and a macro image would see the same flower more than filling the frame.

The white balance of the image looks comfortably warm to me, like "golden hour" lighting but note that I am not viewing on a calibrated monitor.

Wulf

[chicagojohn]

Originally Posted by wulf

It certainly isn't a macro shot or even particularly close-up. I am ambivalent about whether the standard definition of macro (1mm in real life = 1mm on the film / sensor) is still useful in the digital realm (given that viewing on screen introduces a further level of magnification). However, as a rule of thumb for this subject, I would suggest that a close-up image would see one of the flowers almost filling the frame and a macro image would see the same flower more than filling the frame.

The white balance of the image looks comfortably warm to me, like "golden hour" lighting but note that I am not viewing on a calibrated monitor.

Wulf

I agree with the Wulf, more or less.

If a "macro" can be any definition of "close", without regard to the ratio of real-life size to size on the camera sensor, then the macro catetory should be removed from the forum, since anything, relative to the size of the universe, for instance back to the Big Bang, could be considered a "macro" or "close-up", relatively speaking; i.e., a photo of my dog is a macro with respect to one of the moon, and one of the moon with respect ot one of Saturn, or Saturn with respect to my ex-wife from whom I have moved as far away as possible !!

Like Wulf, I think there should at least be a gesture of attempting to be close up. An exception, would be the posting of an image to show the frame of reference for a subsequent post of a close up aspect thereof, I think, as long the subsequent post is part of the same thread, (as I have been recently been guilty of.)

This particular image is nice. One or two of the flowers are closer than the others, and so closer up, as it were. They appear to be a little "soft" on focus. But overall I like the warm colors suggesting either a late afternoon or early morning time frame.

[wulf]

Originally Posted by chicagojohn

If a "macro" can be any definition of "close", without regard to the ratio of real-life size to size on the camera sensor, then the macro catetory should be removed from the forum, since anything, relative to the size of the universe, for instance back to the Big Bang, could be considered a "macro" or "close-up", relatively speaking...

I think you can only stretch relativity so far before it snaps back and hits you with the reductio ad absurdum effect. The reasons I am not an advocate of the sensor size measure as anything more than a rule of thumb are:

1. There are lots of sensor sizes; the measure made more sense when most people were shooting 35mm film.

2. Manufacturers muddy the waters by using the word macro for many things that won't produce 1:1 results.

3. Digital photos are made up of tiny pixels. even the smoothest graduation of tone or sharpest edge is a compromise if you zoom in close enough. Therefore it would make more sense to have a measure based on pixel density.

4. As I mentioned before, displaying images on screen introduces further magnification. If I look at a picture full screen it is the size of an A3 piece of paper; at 1:1 image pixel to screen pixel it is the equivalent of, probably, A1 or larger. If the image appears sharp then how do you measure number of pixels you need to get the equivalent of a film macro?

I think a better modern measure would be taken outside the camera and consider field of view (the distance that fills the long side of the image at the point of optimal focus) instead. How about:

10cm - close up

5cm - macro

2.5cm - true macro (for the true believers still out there)

>2cm - super macro

Wulf

[RichardTaylor]

You may find this thread of interest.

'Macro' = 1:1 ?? What does this really mean

Another analogy (flowers.)
"Normal" - You are looking at a bunch, or bed of flowers.
"Close up" - You are looking at a single flower.
"macro" - You are smelling one or looking at part of one through a magnifying glass.

[chicagojohn]

Originally Posted by wulf

I think you can only stretch relativity so far before it snaps back and hits you with the reductio ad absurdum effect. The reasons I am not an advocate of the sensor size measure as anything more than a rule of thumb are:

1. There are lots of sensor sizes; the measure made more sense when most people were shooting 35mm film.

2. Manufacturers muddy the waters by using the word macro for many things that won't produce 1:1 results.

3. Digital photos are made up of tiny pixels. even the smoothest graduation of tone or sharpest edge is a compromise if you zoom in close enough. Therefore it would make more sense to have a measure based on pixel density.

4. As I mentioned before, displaying images on screen introduces further magnification. If I look at a picture full screen it is the size of an A3 piece of paper; at 1:1 image pixel to screen pixel it is the equivalent of, probably, A1 or larger. If the image appears sharp then how do you measure number of pixels you need to get the equivalent of a film macro?

I think a better modern measure would be taken outside the camera and consider field of view (the distance that fills the long side of the image at the point of optimal focus) instead. How about:

10cm - close up

5cm - macro

2.5cm - true macro (for the true believers still out there)

>2cm - super macro

Wulf

Without the intention to be argumentative, here are a few thoughts which arise in my mind after reading your ideas. First, words are used in many ways. In one usage, to me at least, "macro" is used as an adjective in combination with "lens" to indicate a magnification ratio of 1:1, the capability of the lens to produce a focused image on the film plane / sensor that is the same size as the subject. My DSLR sensor is a 1.53 crop of a full-frame sensor, but that would be irrelevant to this usage, because it's about the lens capability not the image or sensor size. In this usage, there could be degrees of "macroness", I suppose, and as you say, lens manufacturers say their telephoto lens has macro capability at a magnification ratio of 1:2 or 1:4, which we could interpret as less macro than 1:1 but perhaps moreso than a normal lens.

Another usage is descriptive of the image as in "macro photograph". I suppose that could be thought to be an image made using a macro lens, but what if that lens were focused at 1:4? So in this useage, I like your outside-the-camera idea. Nowadays there are indeed many sources of magnification besides the magnification ratio of the lens. And I like the specific values you have selected as guidelines for classification of images.

I'm not sure, though, about your point number 3. Are you saying here that because a 12MP sensor has twice as many pixels as a 6MP one in the same sensor size, potentially allowing an image to be printed at twice the size with equivalent resolution, that the higher pixel density would therefore have double the "macro capability", that term being used in the image sense? If so, I guess I would agree given the distinction in usage made.

So, in summary, to my mind, we need not make this an either-or choice. When applied to lens magnification ratio, "macro" designates one thing. When applied to an image available for viewing, it means another. Perhaps the apparent problem could be eliminated entirely simply be dropping the "macro" and referring instead to maximum magnification ratio?

Thanks for your post, thinking it through helped to clarify this for me.

[Thunder_o_b]

If I may, the multiple size sensors do complicate the ratio in macro. I believe that the simplest way around it is to have a 1:1 lens at the MFD, on a FF camera this would be 1:1, and on a 1.6 sensor it would be a greater magnification. You know for sure that at the MFD you are at or greater than 1:1 thus have true macro.

Unless of course my calculations are wrong.

A suggestion, change the names of the macro rooms to macro and closeups.

[chicagojohn]

Originally Posted by Thunder_o_b

If I may, the multiple size sensors do complicate the ratio in macro. I believe that the simplest way around it is to have a 1:1 lens at the MFD, on a FF camera this would be 1:1, and on a 1.6 sensor it would be a greater magnification. You know for sure that at the MFD you are at or greater than 1:1 thus have true macro.

Unless of course my calculations are wrong.

A suggestion, change the names of the macro rooms to macro and closeups.

I was under the impression, perhaps mistaken, that a 1:1 macro lens would have that magnification ratio for the sensor in a digital camera and on a 35 mm film plane (36 x 24). To me that is a simple fact regardless of the cropping factor. This would mean that at 1:1 a 23.5 mm wide subject would exactly fill the widest dimension of my sensor, but would only fill 65.3% of the widest side of the film plane or full frame sensor. But the image size on the sensor or film plane would remain the same, I would think, because this is inherent in the definition of magnification ratio.

If we think in terms of making a 3:2 print from what is recorded in each case, though, then the image on, let us say, a 4 X 6" print would in fact be smaller in the case of the full frame sensor, larger for the 1.53 cropping factor sensor. And you could say that with respect to the 4 X 6" print made from a full frame camera, the print you get using a lens of focal length of, say, 100 mm with a 1.5 CF duplicates what you would have gotten with a 150 mm lens in the full frame system.

Another way of putting this is that if you took the negative developed from a 35 mm film image shot with a 100 mm lens and applied a 1.53 crop to it in the center, and then made a 4 X 6 print out of that cropped negative, you would get the same image as the 1.5 crop sensor using the same 100 mm focal length lens. But this is magnification that occurs "after the fact", not on the film plane.

To me, unless I'm misunderstanding the physics, this, then, gets into Wulf's point regarding magnification effects involved in making visible images from what is on the sensor or film. My point was that separating the two, the issue of what is or is not a macro depends upon whether you are talking about the lens characteristics or the image that is being viewed.

[Thunder_o_b]

Originally Posted by chicagojohn

I was under the impression, perhaps mistaken, that a 1:1 macro lens would have that magnification ratio for the sensor in a digital camera and on a 35 mm film plane (36 x 24). To me that is a simple fact regardless of the cropping factor. This would mean that at 1:1 a 23.5 mm wide subject would exactly fill the widest dimension of my sensor, but would only fill 65.3% of the widest side of the film plane or full frame sensor. But the image size on the sensor or film plane would remain the same, I would think, because this is inherent in the definition of magnification ratio.

If we think in terms of making a 3:2 print from what is recorded in each case, though, then the image on, let us say, a 4 X 6" print would in fact be smaller in the case of the full frame sensor, larger for the 1.53 cropping factor sensor. And you could say that with respect to the 4 X 6" print made from a full frame camera, the print you get using a lens of focal length of, say, 100 mm with a 1.5 CF duplicates what you would have gotten with a 150 mm lens in the full frame system.

Another way of putting this is that if you took the negative developed from a 35 mm film image shot with a 100 mm lens and applied a 1.53 crop to it in the center, and then made a 4 X 6 print out of that cropped negative, you would get the same image as the 1.5 crop sensor using the same 100 mm focal length lens. But this is magnification that occurs "after the fact", not on the film plane.

To me, unless I'm misunderstanding the physics, this, then, gets into Wulf's point regarding magnification effects involved in making visible images from what is on the sensor or film. My point was that separating the two, the issue of what is or is not a macro depends upon whether you are talking about the lens characteristics or the image that is being viewed being viewed.

Could be. But if I remember history correctly,(and I may be off on this point) the term macro for photography came about from the 35mm era, and 1:1 is marked on that format. My understand is that the crop sensor effect on macro is the same as it is on the non macro lenses ie a 400mm acts like a 600mm ish with a 1.6, with a corresponding apparent increase in magnification in a macro lens. So a lens that is 1:1 on a FF sensor would read as 1.6:1 on a 1.6 crop sensor.

Be that as it may; for those that are new to macro, and less tech inclined, I believe the 1:1 and greater lenses at MFD are a good marker for the term macro, whether dealing with a FF or crop sensor.

But like everything else, that is subject to change with what the majority of people want, kinda like the word 'guys' it is now used to describe females as well as males, I for the life of me don't understand this, but that does not matter.

[chicagojohn]

Originally Posted by Thunder_o_b

Could be. But if I remember history correctly,(and I may be off on this point) the term macro for photography came about from the 35mm era, and 1:1 is marked on that format. My understand is that the crop sensor effect on macro is the same as it is on the non macro lenses ie a 400mm acts like a 600mm ish with a 1.6, with a corresponding apparent increase in magnification in a macro lens. So a lens that is 1:1 on a FF sensor would read as 1.6:1 on a 1.6 crop sensor.

Be that as it may; for those that are new to macro, and less tech inclined, I believe the 1:1 and greater lenses at MFD are a good marker for the term macro, whether dealing with a FF or crop sensor.

But like everything else, that is subject to change with what the majority of people want, kinda like the word 'guys' it is now used to describe females as well as males, I for the life of me don't understand this, but that does not matter.

According to my understanding, Thunder, you're exactly right about the effect of the cropping factor for all lenses. What I'm saying is that if you were to measure the size of a detail on the sensor, that size will be exactly the same for a 35 mm format at 36 X 24" and a 1.53 crop at 23.5 and 15.7, and this will be true for all lenses, not just macro lenses.

But what then happens is that in making a print, the the edges of what would have fallen on the full size sensor are off the sides of the smaller sensor and, in effect, the smaller sensor is cropping the center out of the full size image. Now when you take each of these and make them into a 4 X 6 print, in the full size case you are expanding 36 mm to 6 inches, which is a magnification factor of 4.233 X, while for the smaller sensor you are expanding 23.5 mm to six inches which is a magnification factor of 6.49 X.

So you can see that here the magnification you are talking about comes about in making the viewable image while the size of details on the sensors is the same. Hence a lens with a maximum magnification factor of 1:1 for a subject that is 7 mm in length will produce a 7 mm image on both a 35 mm format focal plane and a smaller sensor that is only 23.5 X 15.7 mm, and again, recognizing this helps me, at least, to get past the "arguments" in how to define a "macro". As Wulf said, I now see that maybe when applied to images, it makes more sense to compare the original size of the subject with the size as it appears on the final viewable image. But at the same time, we can still use the term to describe a target value for lens magnification ratio.

One further example I thought of on the way home from work that illustrates Wulf's point regarding pixels. Suppose we have two DLSR's; an older model with a 3MP sensor and a newer one with a 12MP sensor. The pixel dimensions are, respectively, 1414 X 2121 and 2828 X 4243. We fit the 3MP body with a true 1:1 macro lens and the 12 MP body with a manufacturer's exaggerated lens that will only give us 1:2.

We now take a picture of a praying mantis whose head is 8 mm wide. On the older camera sensor, the head image is 8 mm wide. On the newer camera sensor, it is 4 mm wide.

We now perform a crop on the newer camera image to make it 1414 X 2121. I would think that the cropped image is now identical to the older camera image. Either both are macro photographs or neither is.

Still thinking over Wulf's proposed criteria. They need to be applied to some examples.