The document discusses the increasing importance of macro photography and the role of macro lenses in capturing close-up images. It explains the different types of macro lenses based on their reproduction ratios and highlights key factors such as focal length and working distance that influence macro photography. Furthermore, it compares the advantages and disadvantages of longer versus shorter focal length macro lenses for various photography needs.

1. BUYING A MACRO LENS

2. Image Source
Photography is something that quickly turned from being a hobby, to being a serious
career option. Thanks to the advancements in modern technologies, the adage “a picture
is worth a thousand words” seems truer to life than it ever was. One can zoom in with
their camera lens and even admire the various craters on the moon! With the ever-
increasing need of news stories and the advancements in mass communication, a camera
now holds a more important position that it ever did. Thanks to this small machine,
what was once considered an out-of-the-box, low pay grade career option, is now a
high-paying respectable job.
Many of us have often tried to take a zoomed-in picture of an insect, a toy, a small
object, or maybe a flower. We have done this as a child, or when we had high aims of
acing the art of photography. This is a direct result of seeing several close-up images
on the internet, and just how beautiful they actually look. Well, let me tell you that
even profession photographers love taking close-up images because it does actually
showcase your prowess over your camera lens.
Well, the bad part of taking such photos is that, such close-up photos are pretty difficult
to take. The camera will balk and thus, it will not be able to focus on the object close
enough to create the image you want to capture. A lot of things can cause dissatisfaction

3. in photography, but not being able to take a close-up capture because of the object being
inside the minimum focus distance of the lens, is really frustrating.
What is a Macro Lens?
A Macro lens is the best solution to your problem of not being able to take those highly-
coveted close-up shots. What is this macro lens, you may ask? Well, a macro lens is an
optic that has been created to facilitate you with an extremely short minimum focus
distance to capture accurate and precise close-up photographs. The aim of a macro lens
is to help you reproduce objects at life-size, or even smaller than that as well.
What does this mean? Well, we have all seen large images of smaller objects —a poster-
sized image of an insect, for instance. The reproduced insect looks larger than life-size,
doesn’t it? The goal of a macro lens is to reproduce the life-size version of the object
on the film or sensor.
A macro lens comes with various reproduction dimensions, which are labelled with
their respective ratios.
 A macro lens that is capable of reproducing objects at life-size is called a 1:1 macro
lens.
 A macro lens that is capable of reproducing objects at half-size is called a 1:2 macro
lens.
 A macro lens that is capable of reproducing objects at double the life-size is called a
2:1 macro lens.
Most macro lenses are available with the 1:1 or the 1:2 ratio.
You also have to be careful about one more thing. A lot of lenses are available out there,
especially some with longer zooms, that showcase their “macro” capabilities to attract
your attention. If what you want is close-up photography, keep an eye out for the
magnification ratio of these ‘macro’ lenses, because they might not get you that close
to the 1:1 or 1:2 ratios, which you would want for your photos. The best thing is to
probably steer away from such schemes.
Macro lenses have several other tricks beyond their close-focusing abilities. A lot of
macro lenses are not designed with a curved field, but with a flat field focus, which is
not common in all other lenses. The curved field will allow the image to be sharper in
the center than it will be at the edges. Very often, this is not too noticeable because of
the lens’s depth of field. With a proper macro lens, the flat-field focus will allow the
image to be in focus from edge to edge within the frame. Impressive, right?

4. Considering the Focal Length
Before you go off, buying a macro lens, you need to understand the concept of a focal
length as well. What is a focal length? It is basically the distance between the optical
center of the camera lens and the image plane. The focal length is one important factor
when purchasing a macro lens. A lot of people, even budding photographers, assume
that the longer the focal length—the more telephoto the macro lens will be, which just
mean more magnification you can obtain from the macro lens. This is not true all the
time because certain macro lenses of different focal lengths also obtain a 1:1 ratio.
A major difference you will experience when using a telephoto macro lens and a wide-
angle macro lens is the different minimum focus distance. In the world of macro photos,
this is called the ‘working distance’. A focal length lens that is longer will have a more
efficient working distance than a focal length lens which is shorter. The benefit of
having a larger working distance is for you having the ability to stay farther from your
subject of photography.
A longer focal length lens also comes with a shallower depth of field. This may or may
not pose as an advantage to the photograph you want to capture and create. Finally, the
extra working distance may also allow you to prevent your gear from casting an
unwanted shadow on the object you are photographing.
So, it must seem now that a focal length, which is longer, is better for macro lens
andphotography, right? But, there are benefits of having a shorter focal length as well.
The macro lenses with shorter focal lengths are generally more compact since they’re
smaller in size, lighter, and cheaper than longer focal length lenses. Add to that, they
can also achieve the similar level of magnification! If you are someone who does
macro-shooting casually, having a lighter and smaller macro lens with you might be the
better option than carrying around a bigger and a bulkier telephoto macro lens that
might just rival your largest optics for the weight and size of it.
Keeping all these factors in mind, you can go ahead and purchase a macro lens of your
choice, based on what you want to photograph and how you want to do so.
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