Last time I talked about understanding macro photography technique and composition, therefore I now present the variety of lens solution that you can use for macro photography. The range of solution varies a lot with image quality and price range (as usual).

If you own an SLR Camera and an existing lens:

You can use magnification lenses for macro photography if you already own an existing lens. This is by far the cheapest possible solution to get macro shots.

Magnification Lens

Magnification Lens

The amount of magnification with this lenses varies with their power. The bigger the number the stronger the magnification. In the image example above I have the +1 lens coupled with a +3 lens which makes up to +4 magnification.

There are trade-offs when using these lenses however:

1. The more magnification lenses you put in front of your lens, the less light getting through the lens. Which means your camera speed will be lower than normal. Say in a certain condition you have 1/100s speed, when you screw on these lenses you might end up with 1/60s speed.
2. The depth of field will be shallower than a true macro lens. With these lenses its slightly harder to get the background of the object sharper without losing the speed.

As I said previously, this is the most affordable quality solution.

If you are planning and have the budget to get a new lens:

Dedicated Macro Lens

Then get the true macro lens. These lenses offer very high magnification and incredible detailed result. Depending on your budget, you might want to look at third party providers as well. I use Tamron macro lenses myself and to date I have been very satisfied with its results.

With this lenses, you will have full control of the aperture, speed and focus. Many of these lenses have fixed focal lens, meaning that you will not have an option to zoom in or out. That’s okay, considering you don’t get that far or close from your macro subject most of the time.

If you want to get a semi-slr:

Macro in Compact Camera

Don’t forget to consider and semi SLR camera with macro capability. My old DiMage A1 did very good macro before I switched to the SLR. It gave good details when printed up to A4, above A4 however we might start to see the compression noise. This is because of the nature of Semi-SLR that has smaller image sensor than the true SLR. Ont he other hand, as technology grows, the semi SLRs are getting better and better in its quality. Best way to find out is always to check out the sample shots for a particular camera.

Reverse lens technique:

This a technique that can also be explored if you feel adventurous. Basically you use the other end of your lens to be attached to the camera body, then you will get massive amount of magnification. Of course you will have to buy the converter to do this. The downside of this technique and why I never use this as my permanent solution is that you might get your bottom end of your lens (the body connector part) scratched.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to start doing macro shots. I wouldn’t recommend those macro settings in a compact pocket camera however because of their lack of control and their depth of field is never shallow enough.

I guess I’ll start of the 2009 post with a little bit of my short trip to Indonesia. I went to a small town of Pati in Central Java to look for something different than the capital city Jakarta. Of course, while there is not much modern entertainments like those large shopping centres, pubs, etc. This town has its own unique appearance.

The buildings remains the same as it was when I went here a few years ago, time seems to go slower here. If we look at the picture of the houses, those are the typical house + shop buildings.

Among other things however one of the best activities that I did was hunting for food. My favourite would be the traditional food called “Nasi Gandul”.

Its most prominent characteristics is having to place the food on top of a sheet of banana leave, giving the dish a very traditional look. I’m not quite sure what part of the cattle is the meat , all I know is that this food taste great and I love it! By the way, this is why we have to bring our camera everywhere including restaurants, so that we can take a picture of those different looking foods.

That was all exciting, unfortunately there are some sad aspect of this city (probably throughout the nation); it is the fact that most of the historical and old buildings are not being cared for. Take a look at the picture below, this was the once great looking sports hall, now a “ghost” looking hall.

From this city, I then moved on to a village, kind of rural suburb area I guess; it was called Trangkil.

Trangkil Sugar Factory

This place was once one of the biggest sugar factory in Central Java during the time of Dutch Colonial. I went there because my Grandpa was one of the head machinist in that sugar factory. Let’s take a look of the few shots that I took during the visit:

Although looking like a worn out factory, according to the caretaker there, this factory is actually operational. Too bad they didn’t take care of the facility like it used to be, could have been a good tourist attraction, especially there are still a lot of younger visitors who are the family members of the ones who used to work here. The saddest part is when the caretaker said that the last remaining old building will be destroyed as well.

The factory visit was a great thing to look at a portion of the Indonesian history.

Photo Tips: In the dark places like the factory machines above, use high ISO settings and the highest aperture (eg. f/2.8) possible to ensure sharp result. If you use a zoom lens, use the lowest focal length.

From the visits in Pati I then moved to the Semarang city. It is much larger than Pati and more modern in a sense. As usual however, I prefer to visit historical places. I’d like to show you one of the interesting place in there, the Pagoda Avalokitsvara.

This is a realtively new place with great aesthetics. Maybe with a little bit more publication it can be a good addition to the city’s tourism. The pictures that I took here could have been better. The rainy day when I came here didn’t help with the photography aspect of the visit . Here’s a little bit more shots from the site.

All in all, I am delighted to say that my trip had been a wonderful one. Great sites to see, great historical view, great food and most of all great chance to take good photos!

Season’s Greetings and Happy New Year!

I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday and great times.

As quick tips for those who will be travelling:

1. Don’t forget to bring your wider angle lens, along 18-28 mm. This is so that you can capture the scenery and not forgetting where you have been.
2. Bring your flash, as you’ll never know when you need to shoot indoors.
3. Charge up your camera at the end of each day.
4. Dump your photos into a portable storage or your laptop if you have them, so that you have more room to shoot.