Better closeups

I shall tell you my methods of taking good close up and macro photos using my fixed lens point and shoot camera.

The picture shows a test shot taken using the "macro" setting on the camera. Objects close to the camera are blurred, those at the right distance can be seen clearly and then, further out, they are blurry again.

The trick is to get your camera - to object distance at this sweet spot every time.

Step 1 Carry around a distance mark

If you look closely at the previous photograph, you will note that the markings on the scale are sharpest at one particular point. That is the point at which the camera focuses when put into "macro" mode. The photos below show my solution to this: I have put a white piece of tape on the wrist strap of the camera, at the point where the macro focus point lies.

Then, while taking a closeup photo, I hold the camera with one hand, stretch the strap with the other and place the object at the mark on the strap. This way, macro photographs turn out to be sharp every time.

The camera does have an LCD screen. This is not very helpful for focusing, since the image is very small, and apt to get washed out in bright light outdoors.

Comments

[theRIAA]

the tape is a brilliant idea, but are you sure that the "sweet spot" is not just a minimum focus distance? can't you focus on things a little farther away from it? on my canon a620 macro mode has auto focus and just focuses in a range (like .5inch to 4') closer than normal focus (3' to infinity)

[neelandan]

This is for cameras without auto focus. Some cameras have a lever with two focus settings: normal and macro. Some cameras do not have such adjustments at all. In that case, carry a supplementary lens around. In both cases, a mark on the "sweet spot" will help you achieve focus easily. In case of autofocus cameras, you could find the minimum distance at which the camera is able to focus and mark that. In this case, you would keep the object beyond the mark.