Will a macro lens help in this situation?

[Gargen]

I'm a total photography noob. In fact, technically, I'm not even taking the pictures in this scenario, my GF is... but I'm the one who may be buying a $300 macro lens as a Christmas present, and I want to make sure it's actually going to do what she thinks it will (after spending a few hours researching, I think the answer is no, but I'm not certain).

What she uses the camera for:
She uses it for lots of stuff, but the specific "problem" scenario is taking close up pictures of food (something like this).

Cameras she uses:
A Sony NEX-C3 mirrorless large sensor camera (with this 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens) and some random old Sony point and shoot of unknown model number.

The problem:
When she takes those close up food shots, she complains that the good mirrorless camera "won't focus" and uses the point and shoot instead, which obviously has *much* worse image quality (and tends to be blurry since the shutter speed will also be much slower). I'm 99.999% sure that "won't focus" means that the depth of field is too shallow.

The potential solution:
This 30mm f/3.5 macro lens. My goal is to find something that will significantly increase the depth of field on those close up food shots. Sony also has a 50mm f/1.8 lens, but I'm pretty sure the depth of field on that would be even worse... although it would be further away so maybe that offsets the higher mm and larger aperture enough?. The kit lens seems to have a the smallest apertures though so I think it would actually be the best for depth of field.

Will the macro lens fix the situation? Is there another kind of lens I should be aiming for? Is there another way to fix this problem that us photo nobs just don't know about?

Please help!

 

[Dubb]

I'm a total photography noob. In fact, technically, I'm not even taking the pictures in this scenario, my GF is... but I'm the one who may be buying a $300 macro lens as a Christmas present, and I want to make sure it's actually going to do what she thinks it will (after spending a few hours researching, I think the answer is no, but I'm not certain).

What she uses the camera for:
She uses it for lots of stuff, but the specific "problem" scenario is taking close up pictures of food (something like this).

Cameras she uses:
A Sony NEX-C3 mirrorless large sensor camera (with this 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens) and some random old Sony point and shoot of unknown model number.

The problem:
When she takes those close up food shots, she complains that the good mirrorless camera "won't focus" and uses the point and shoot instead, which obviously has *much* worse image quality (and tends to be blurry since the shutter speed will also be much slower). I'm 99.999% sure that "won't focus" means that the depth of field is too shallow.

The potential solution:
This 30mm f/3.5 macro lens. My goal is to find something that will significantly increase the depth of field on those close up food shots. Sony also has a 50mm f/1.8 lens, but I'm pretty sure the depth of field on that would be even worse... although it would be further away so maybe that offsets the higher mm and larger aperture enough?. The kit lens seems to have a the smallest apertures though so I think it would actually be the best for depth of field.

Will the macro lens fix the situation? Is there another kind of lens I should be aiming for? Is there another way to fix this problem that us photo nobs just don't know about?

Please help!

Macro lenses have a shorter minimum focus distance (AKA close focus distance or working distance) - it's not all about depth of field. Sometimes with these kinds of shots you want a short focus distance and a short depth of field, to blur out the background.

So the macro lens might help, if she's having trouble focusing with the kit lens because of the minimum focus distance. The kit lens MFD is ~9.5" (best case), the 30mm MFD is ~1". Probably fair to assume that's her problem, but it also might be that she hasn't quite got the hang of the Autofocus system on the camera.

The test would be to set the camera to manual focus, on a tripod, and try to get one of these shots by using liveview (zoomed in) and turning the focus ring on the lens.

You can also use extension tubes to make standard lenses focus closer. Looks like there are a few different brands for e-mount - I have no idea which ones are best, but I'd make sure to get ones that have the electrical contacts, so all the usual camera functions will still work.

 

[fralexandr]

0.3x is certainly good enough to get close up shots on stuff like cupcakes.
http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/st...8552921666192815&storeId=10151#specifications
That 18-55 lens will probably NOT focus on anything less than 9.8 inches away.

the minimum focusing distance of that 18-55 is 9.8" and it has a maximum magnification of "0.3x" (relative to an APS-C). The NEX APS-C sensor is 23.4mm x 15mm, or 0.92 in x 0.6 in. This means a ~3" or 7.5cm object should be able to fill the camera's liveview when set to the correct focal length (probably 55mm, though it might be different depending on lens).

http://www.photographyblog.com/previews/sony_nex_c3_photos/
see the closeup of the flower.

so, TL/DR: for food,
1) set NEX camera lens to 55mm
2) place camera ~10" from subject
3) focus + take picture
4) crop/post process if you want

----------
Depth of Field is related to Aperture and Distance. The 50mm @ f/1.8 focused on a close object will have a narrow depth of field. The same 50mm lens @ f/22 focused far away will have a wide depth of field.
note: to clarify, the 50mm f/1.8 prime has a maximum aperture of 1.8. It has a minimum aperture of f/22.
Fast primes are desirable, since they have the option of letting in more light.
A depth of field calculator for you to play with .
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/dof-calculator.htm

1:1 macro lenses are pretty good for taking pictures of objects EVEN smaller than cupcakes. A 1:1 macro (relative to APS-C) will focus close enough such that a ~1" object will fill its frame. A dedicated macro would be useful for taking pictures of things even smaller in size, such as object TEXTURES, SD cards, or many of the smaller insects (you might need >1x on a lot of them, search reverse mount adapter).

Macro lenses tend to have EVEN worse Depth of Field due to the subject being EXTREMELY CLOSE. Even at relatively high apertures (>f/11) Depth of field can be extremely thin, and you won't be able to have the whole object in focus (without focus stacking or specialized infinite depth of field cameras).

This picture was taken with a pentax f 50mm f/2.8 macro @ f/6.3, 1/400s, ~0.8-1x magnification (APS-C Pentax K100d).

As you can see, only a small part of it is in focus.

----------
That said, macro lenses are fun to play with , though you might want to go with a telephoto lens if you don't have one already.

food photography depends heavily on lighting, if she's seriously into food photography, a flash diffuser or bounce card might be helpful.
Lighting and Presentation of food are important concepts in a food's desirability.

 

[iGas]

That type of food porn do not need true macro lens. IMHO, what your gf need is a tripod, or at the very least a table tripod.

Then step up to a off camera flash with diffuser, or reflector/s.
Then large softbox with lights, dedicated light table, and wide angle tilt-shift lens, if she is truly into food/product photography.
The next step is large format camera with bellows.

 

[Silenus]

You are getting some good advice here. I would hold off on a macro lens for now until you try some more things as mentioned above. I suspect she may be trying to shoot close at a wide angle (lens zoomed out towards the 18mm end), and thus going below the minimum focus distance of the lens. That or possibly you are trying to auto focus in lower light with a low contrast subject which could cause the camera to struggle to lock focus. Either way, with a few changes you should be able to work around either problem.

I would definitely try what fralexandr said first. Tripod (a must), 55mm and at least 10" back, set to minimum ISO, start with F/8-F/11 aperture, manual exposure mode, self timer or shutter delay mode, and perhaps live view manual focus to get the focus just where you want it. I think you may find greatly improved results. And between stopping down the lens and shooting at lowest ISO (TURN OFF AUTO ISO!), you should find image quality to be maximized (and WAY better than any compact). After that it will all come down to >lighting<, which is going to make or break everything.

 

[tdawg]

As others have stated, this isn't a macro lens issue. The sample image you linked to is simply a matter of framing that can be captured anywhere from 35mm to the 55mm top end of the kit lens. Your only limiting factor on depth of field here will be the f/5.6 minimum aperture available at 55mm for that lens. Not sure what it would be at 35mm (some of these kit lenses hit their slowest minimum aperture with little move off the widest zoom.

 

[CuriousMike]

I presume these food shots are indoors without flash.

If you find your photos aren't sharp, try a tripod or boost your ISO to get a fast shutter speed.

 

[Gargen]

You are getting some good advice here.

Indeed! :awe:

Thanks for the advice everyone! Those of you that guessed that she's using the widest angle were right. I'll report back after we try zooming in and a table tripod.

 

[VashHT]

I had a Nex 7 for a little while and it wasn't very good at auto-focusing in lower light, if you're doing this in restaurants I'm guessing the lighting isn't the best. You could try manual focus with peaking if the 3C has it, it was really easy to use and you can get good focus that way.

 

[Silenus]

Indeed! :awe:

Thanks for the advice everyone! Those of you that guessed that she's using the widest angle were right. I'll report back after we try zooming in and a table tripod.

Please come back and post some example photos WITH exif data in tact. We could probably help even more after that.

 

[ElFenix]

if depth of field is too narrow the lens needs to be stopped down. i'm going to guess the default program of the NEX camera keeps the lens fairly open. try somewhere between f/8 and f/11.

if you use the longer end of the lens, and pull back a bit, that will also deepen the depth of field.

 

[biostud]

Has she tried using zoom, and increase the distance to the food? I can take good pics with my 35mm lens.

 

[Paladin3]

I do a lot of available light product photography in our store. Food always looks good when it's backlit a bit to give it a clean, bright background. I use a piece of white cardboard just out of frame as a reflector to bounce light onto the front of the product/food and fill in the shadows. Take a spot meter reading on the food and let the background go bright, as long as it's not too bright or gives you glare.

I'm just using a Nikon kit 18-70/3.5-4.5, almost always at 70mm/f4.5/500-800iso. Wide open gives me a nice shallow depth of field since I am almost always working around the lenses minimum focusing distance. My goal is to frame the shot in camera so I don't have to spent too much time on post processing.

I like to shoot handheld because it makes it easier to fine tune the shot without having to worry about adjusting a tripod. My shutter speeds are around 1/60th or 1/30th, but I can handhold at that pretty well even though the lens in non-VR.

Don't forget about the white balance. Hopefully your GF's kitchen has even lighting that is all the same color, so you don't have funky colors. If you start shooting flash, then you need to worry about the daylight balanced strobe clashing with the available.

Then you'll either need to overpower the clashing available light with your strobe, and that often leads to ugly photos with dark backgrounds, or gel the strobe to match the color of the available light. Bah, it's just so much easier to shoot available with a neutral white reflector so all your light is the same color.

TL;dR - Use your lens at 55mm/wide open aperture. Turn up the ISO so you get a hand-holdable shutter speed (~1/60). Backlight the food in it's natural environs (kitchen), with a clean background, and fill in the shadows with a piece of white cardboard just out of frame.

And get her something else for Christmas.

 

[Gargen]

Just to follow up, zooming in and backing off has done the trick. We didn't even realize that the lens had a minimum focus length of 9.8" oops and starting about 12" back and zooming as necessary has worked great! :thumbsup:

 

[biostud]

Good to hear.

 

[Throckmorton]

Keep in mind you can also set the aperture smaller than the maximum. Just because the kit lens is f3.5 wide open doesn't mean you have to shoot at f3.5