A80 Macro v. Close-Up lens

[scrumpy]

The A80 takes brilliant macro shots - albeit a bit fiddly getting the focus correct. Please, has anyone used the A80's close-up lens? Would I benefit by getting one?

[Bodryn]

I don't know about their closeup lens, but I believe my A70 uses the identical lens adapter: it will hold a 52mm screw-on filter such as you may have if you have some old 35mm filters. I currently have several 52mm closeup lenses, a polaroid filter and some UV filters that I scrounged from my old Ricoh 35mm camera bags. I use manual focus though; don't know if autofocus would work under these conditions.

Specifically, the closeup lenses I'm using are: two +4 diopter lenses, one +2 diopter and two +1 diopter lenses. With these you can get right up on top of the subject if you focus in on it with the camera manual focus.

[scrumpy]

Thank you for all the information. I think what I really want to know is - If I bought the close-up lens etc. would I have to get as close to the subject as I do using the current macro facility? Or, would I be able to back off a bit and still get good close-ups?

[Bodryn]

My closeup lenses are basically just simple convex lenses - they fit on a 52mm filter thread; the more you want to magnify, the closer you have to get.

I suppose that for something more elaborate, one would have to have some type of telescopic magnifier, something on the order of what surgeons wear over their eyes for delicate operations such as neurosurgery: they get high magnification at over two feet distance which ordinarily would require being within a few inches or less.

You might want to try building your own such device: you can actually build something like this by taking a simple achromatic telescope and moving the front lens (objective) further out from the eyepiece until it focuses at the distance you want. One source of such information might be amateur astronomy or telescope making organizations on-line.

I have made and experimented with a few simple telescopes myself that could be made to do this but I haven't tried photographing through any of them. One rule of thumb is to double the focal distance, thus: for example, if an objective lens focuses at infinity at, say, 10 inches in front of the eyepiece, it would focus down to as close as 20 inches if you doubled its distance in front of the eyepiece from ten to twenty inches. If this telescope started out as, say a 30 power telescope at infinity, you'd have a pretty powerful closeup system by the time it focused down to twenty inches. One easy to try this out: you could unscrew a 7x50 lens off the front of an inexpensive pair of binoculars and experiment a bit. (You can always screw it back on again; nothing lost.) A quick and easy way to estimate the focal length of it would be to see how far away you have to hold it from a piece of paper to get distant objects to focus on the paper. You could put another few inches of distance in front of the binocs and see how close it would focus and how clearly. Fun stuff, by the way. :)

[scrumpy]

Many thanks for all that info. Have ordered the len adapter. I will experiment from there. Will let you know how I get on.

David

[angstrom]

The A60/70/75 cameras share a common lens, but the A80 lens extends further & requires a longer adapter tube.

Although adapter tubes are offered with a 37mm front thread, I chose the 52mm variety -- figuring secondhand 52/55mm filters would be more readily available & that shooting through the center of a larger accessory lens would reduce CA and other edge-prone distortion. (The flip side is that the smaller tube obstructs less of the autofocus light / flash field-of-view.)

In the field, I rarely use my macro lenses because they have a terribly limited depth of field. The closeup diopters are much more forgiving. Contrary to what you may have heard/read, you can stack the diopters 4 or 6 deep without noticing all that much image degradation.


If I bought the close-up lens etc. would I have to get as close to the subject as I do using the current macro facility? Or, would I be able to back off a bit and still get good close-ups?

A bit, but not much. Dioptric accessory lenses can allow you to avoid 'crowding' (or bumping, haha) your subject, but they have a limited working distance. I think the biggest benefit they provide is more opportunity to shoot using the widest setting (you lose the ability to select f2.8 as soon as you zoom in) so that you can control DOF & separate your subject from its background.

Autofocus isn't impeded by the use of diopters or accessory lenses. The only time I consistently shoot with manual focus is when using a fisheye lens -- just set the camera focus to infinity (through the fisheye, everything near and far will be in focus).

I can't imagine having fast enough reflexes to refocus & keep up with many insects I've focused. I've largely relied on ContinuousShot mode to provide focus bracketing, moving in/out and snapping several shots rather than tediously squinting at the LCD or trusting the autofocus.

In the context of macro/manual shooting, you'll find that the A80 has an annoying "feature". After 3 minutes (max, per the setup menu) of inactivity, the LCD powers off and switches back to AF. There's no workaround short of saving your settings to C1 or C2... and powering the camera off, and back on, to recall the settings each time the A80 reverts to AF. I haven't yet tried connecting the A80 and using RemoteCapture to acquire closeup shots; hopefully, the powersave feature (autofocus reset bug) isn't an issue when shooting remotely.

[scrumpy]

Thanks for the 'Continuous Shooting' mode idea. Why didn't I think of that!? I have no trouble getting close to the bugs, but as you say, getting them in sharp focus is another thing. I'll try it tomorrow and let you know how I get on. Thanks also for all the other information. It's great to know that if you ask, someone 'out-there' will probably have the answer.

[D4VE]

... to AF. I haven't yet tried connecting the A80 and using RemoteCapture to acquire closeup shots; hopefully, the powersave feature (autofocus reset bug) isn't an issue when shooting remotely.

You can turn the powersave off - have you tried that?

[scrumpy]

Reckon I have solved the problem of getting close and in focus. I tried the quick shooting mode. It didn't work - I still got 90% of rubbish. I noticed when 'playing' with camera at the breakfast table I was able to focus 100% on the print in the newspaper in Macro mode. I cut out a four inch square of newsprint - stuck it on a card - and keep it with me in the camera case. Now all I do is take out the card, focus on on the print, lock the focus and shoot my shot. It fools the A80 every time!!