Can some one tell me how to do this? I have a fairly good camera. it is a Nikon cool pix 10 mp. I just dont know if it is good enough and how you can get that super up close shot of the babies? Can some one help
do you not have the manual for the camera?
set the camera to macro mode(im 99% sure it has it) and get close, with a 10mp you can crop a very close up pic nearly as good as the microscope pics.
first set your camera to macro (the little flower). If you have a tripod use it, the steadier the camera and plant the clearer the picture. If you dont have a tripod try to stabilize the camera however you can.
Personally I hold the camera in the air but I always rest my hands on the side of my cab or whatever solid surface is around. While holding the camera make sure your trigger finger is free and won't affect movement of the camera when you snap the pic. It's also just as important to stabilize the plant if it's swaying, I do this by putting some small stress on the plant such as a small weight against the stem or basically slightly stress what ever branch your taking a pic of, just so it's solid and wont bounce around in the breeze.
Get right in there about 1-2 inches away. You may have to refocus a few times to get the camera to focus on what you want. Some cameras can be a pain in the ass, and if it's gets frustrating just focus on another object that's the same distance as your target...keep holding the focus down...and then snap a pic of your target. Holding the focus down locks it and you can manually adjust the distance of the camera for a clear shot. Personally I just keep hitting the focus button (sometimes 10+ times) until I get a clear shot.
I'm no expert photographer but I get decent results like this...here's ~10mp, also these pics were shrunk down for my album and lost alot of clairity, I'm sure someone else can do better.
not the greatest, but they work well for checking trics. I need a tripod.
*edit these are MUCH clearer on my PC before I shrink them down. these don't do my camera justice at all, I can very clearly see tricrome colors and structure with 10mp. all pics are deleted off my PC, otherwise I'd crop one down and show the detail.
I use a Veho Discovery VMs-004 Deluxe. The only thing I don't like about it is it hasn't 2 ajustment wheels (one for focus and one for zoom). Has only a zoom one, and usually you can focus on objects only around 20x and 400x. But for the price I got it for it's great. check ebay.
I don't think a normal consumer camera, even a 10 mp one could focus on such small things as a trichome. I have a DSLR and it's hard to focus clearly even on a pistil.
stealth thanks for the pics those are awesome I should be able to get those results with my camera. thanks for the advice.
explosive thanks for the advice aswell.
Lloyd..you have gotten some great advise already here I see. I'm not familiar with your camera but let me try to help with some basics..you need real good lighting. I shoot with 2 200 watt daylight bulbs. With direct sunlight you can get some good results but also it can cloud things..you just have to shoot a lot of images and see what works best. Your flash may do the trick but often the subject is behind the lens and the lens obscures the flash from reaching it. Shoot at the highest resolution you can and as close as you can to the subject and still allow good focus. You then can crop out of your image in a program such as Photoshop a small patch of trichs and at 72dpi and 10x12" they will appear macro. Now camera shake is, I think, the most important thing to control in getting good macros... to aliviate it use a good tripod or very very steady rest. Your subject must be completely still as well. No air movement either. I can see my heartbeat when shooting macro that is transferred through my wood flooring to the camera. I shoot with my tripod on the ground or on cement. Shutter release..if you have a remote release it will help you a lot. Your camera does not have mirror lock up but if it did you should use this. Good luck and we look forward to your pix..DD
you can rest the camera on something steady and set the time delay feature that normally lets the photographer run into the group shot. most cameras come with 3 or 10 second delays. some cameras you can set your own delay. this way you aren't touching the camera when it takes the pic, similar to a remote release DD talks about.
i use my 3.2 megapixel cannon powershot lol. old school.... i have an 8 megapixel cannon but i can only find the macro setting and it doesn't zoom in well like my old one which has a super macro setting... my pics aren't the best but good enough