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Thursday, September 8, 2016

Using the Macro ability of your digital camera.


My digital camera, the Canon SX530 Powershot has been very nice to me. One of the things I noticed that was not so nice are the measurements scale for the macro zoom functions. Macro zoom, for those of you who don't know, is for shooting extremely close to a subject. 1 to 6 inches is close. Some people like to take a picture that is even closer.

My camera was set to metric measurements and while I understand the accuracy of the metric system, I switched mine to inches so I could better use the macro ability. I know what 1 and 2 inches looks like, whereas I don't know what 50cm looks like.

'Having written that though, I set the macro focus to 1 inch and then put the camera about 1 inch away from this keyboard I am using. The letter G was still a little out of focus.

My point is trust what your eyes see as focused, and then take the picture.

The Powershot has an interesting feature that I can't presently take advantage of. I can connect an HDMI device.

I mentioned this a few posts ago. If I could carry around a tablet or some other large self powered screen device, a Macbook Pro, or an iPad with a Lightroom type of application I could use that large screen to really see how well my subject is focused.

And of course, some subjects, like a moving hummingbird, don't allow you the time, so you have to trust the camera to capture as best as it can for you.