Timeline for How does focal length relate to macro magnification?
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| Oct 23, 2013 at 16:23 | history | edited | Michael C | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 18, 2013 at 11:45 | vote | accept | Don | ||
| Oct 18, 2013 at 10:46 | comment | added | Michael C | Yes, there are Macro lenses that magnify at greater than 1:1. The Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x Macro is such a lens. It is very specialized and demonstrates the advantage of interchangeable lenses. It can only focus at distances between 100mm (1:1 or 1.0x) and 41mm (5:1 or 5.0x). At 41mm a grain of rice will fill the frame! To get this much magnification, the lens' effective aperture is very narrow so a lot of light is needed to take a photo at this setting and care must be taken not to shade the subject with the camera and lens that are less than 2" away. | |
| Oct 18, 2013 at 10:34 | comment | added | Michael C | Keep in mind, the 1:1 is in reference to the image as projected on the sensor in the camera, not the size of the subject in a print or displayed on a computer monitor. If you take an image captured by a 36mm x 24mm sensor and print it at even 4" x 6", your print is magnified by a linear factor of 4 and covers 16x the area of the image projected on the sensor. If you display the same image on a 23" monitor, the picture is magnified by a linear factor of 11 and covers 121x the area of the FF sensor. | |
| Oct 18, 2013 at 9:14 | comment | added | Don | Thank you for covering the Macro part, I learned a lot! Just one other thing I have to know about the macro lens is, aren't there any lens that will magnify more than 1:1? I mean, I see so many photographers take so large and detailed photos of tiny insects, they can't be 1:1,maybe 2:1 or even more. But I tried to find lens like that and found none.If there aren't lens that do that, how do people achieve that level of magnification? and if there are,do you think that there are lens like that that will also allow me to have some nice amount of distance from the subject? | |
| Oct 18, 2013 at 0:27 | history | edited | Michael C | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 17, 2013 at 23:35 | history | edited | Michael C | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 17, 2013 at 23:28 | comment | added | Michael C | Actually, the sensor in your Fuji has about 1/15th the area of your D60's, and 1/30th the area of a FF sensor, not 1/14 as I mentioned a few comments ago. | |
| Oct 17, 2013 at 23:08 | comment | added | Michael C | But the whole point is that no one shooting on Full Frame cameras wants a 24-720mm lens as long as it comes with the compromises to image quality and narrower apertures such a design would necessitate. Not to mention it would cost as much as a luxury automobile and be almost as heavy. The whole point of interchangeable lens cameras is to make each lens do one thing very well, or a few things fairly well, or a few things 'good enough' at a much cheaper price, without forcing a single lens to do everything fairly poorly. | |
| Oct 17, 2013 at 23:01 | comment | added | Michael C | The sensor size has everything to do with it. To get the equivalent angle of view of a 24-720mm lens on a full frame 36mm x 24mm sensor, your Fuji actually has a lens with a zoom range of 4.1-123.4mm. That lens can be manufactured MUCH more cheaply than a FF 24-720mm lens because the image circle it must project is about 1/14 the size of a FF sensor. Since it is much smaller, it uses less materials. It also gives up a lot in terms of image quality: things like distortion, chromatic aberration, vignetting, not to mention sharpness, control of depth of field, and sensitivity to light. | |
| Oct 17, 2013 at 22:52 | history | edited | Michael C | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 17, 2013 at 22:43 | history | edited | Michael C | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 17, 2013 at 11:39 | comment | added | Don | Firstly, thanks for the great answer! very informative and useful. what I now wonder about is two things, how is it that a cheap camera such as the Fuji that I own has so much zoom range while lens that can get to the same level for DSLRs cost a fortune? is that because of the sensor size difference? and just to understand another thing, when does 'zoom' lens become 'macro' lens? or all zoom lens can be used for macro shots? | |
| Oct 17, 2013 at 9:48 | history | answered | Michael C | CC BY-SA 3.0 |