A70..Macro Shots?

[bulletbrain56]

Can anyone give any hints or tips on taking good Macro shots with the PowerShot A70.

[eastcoast909]

I don't use the A70 but a quick search on this forum using "macro and techniques" brought up this link http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=188&highlight=macro+techniques.

This is from the "G" series forum but the information looks like it should be valid for the A70 also.

If you are willing to spend some money there are a variety of lens adapters out there that will allow you to attach a macro lens to an adapter on the A70 for this purpose, but the techniques should still be valid.

Good luck! Let's see some of those photos! :) :)

[hypepix]

I find the macro focus works best when you adjust the slider in the mf mode(a second push of the macro button will yield full manual control) It is adjustable with the two left and right buttons in the four butt diamond configuration on lower right hand side of your camera...
Best,
G
http://www.hypepix.com

[ScottK]

- A pretty good amount of ambient light (i.e. light from either natural sources or positioned lights, but from somewhere other than the flash). This was my very first breakthrough in taking macro shots with my A40.

- Buy an adapter, then buy...

- Macro/close-up filters. They usually come in +1, +2 and +4 sets, but are available seperately or in other combinations. They do 2 things: slightly magnify the scene, and (more importantly) shorten the distance at which you can focus.

- If you want "extreme" macros, look into a "reversed lens" setup. Really pretty easy to do. First, you find a cheap 50mm SLR lens (doesn't matter what brand or what type of mount it has, because it's going to be reversed). "Cheap" is, of course relative, and the better the lens you get, the better the results, but there are used ones out there for as little as $20. Make sure the lens has at least a 1.8 max aperature, and a bigger aperature will be even better. Next, buy a male-to-male coupling ring. What this does is one side of it screws into the filter threads of the 50mm, the other screws into your adapter. If the filter size of the lens is different than that of your adapter, you may also need a step ring to match them. The result is that the 50mm lens is backwards, screwed on in front of your camera's built-in lens. It then acts like a super-macro lens. In relative terms to macro filters described above, from what I've read this achieves a magnifications equivilent to about +25. Very fun to play with. Here's a picture I took with this technique on my A40: http://dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=36824. That bug was about half an inch long.

The issues with shooting reversed lens are 1) you will get vignetting (that's why the aperature needs to be big - the bigger the aperature, the less vignetting), and 2) you get a very narrow DOF. Neither of these should keep you from trying (if you want some extreme close-ups), but they are issues that you'll need to deal with.