Equipment

Getting a good shot was a hit and miss business, film was expensive and development costs out of my reach! Yet I did get a few acceptable shots.

My first SLR camera was the Praktica MTL5 with a 50mm lens. This was a very robust and heavy camera. It was fully manual, which is ideal for learning photography, but did not have a inbuilt light metre (I carried an external handheld light metre or just made an ‘educated’ guess at the correct exposure settings).

Although the lens quality was fairly poor, if the lighting was good and you used slide film you could get some fairly decent photographs (Agfa slide film gave a painting-like effect).

The camera had of course a stop-down button – a must if you wanted to check your depth of field when composing your shots.

My first macro shot was using the 50mm lens mounted on a reversing ring. I only had one shot – I guess I was lucky!

My next camera was a Nikkormat FTN, again a fully manual and robust camera with an inbuilt exposure metre and a stop down button.

The greatly improved lens quality resulted in much sharper pictures. Again I preferred slide film for quality and cost reasons.

It was not until the advent of digital photography that I really started getting interested in macro-photography. One of my first digital cameras was the Nikon Coolpix 5000 an excellent compact camera with an inbuilt macro facility.

The first results were a revelation. Not only was the quality better than I could ever have expected but results were immediate and film costs had totally vanished. And what’s more one could correct the shots using Photoshop! Digital photography had changed everything!

My next purchase, and current camera, was the Nikon D70 with a 60mm macro lens. This was an expensive purchase but since there are no longer any film costs it was well worth the investment – especially the 60mm macro lens.

Although getting a good shot is still not an easy matter, when you do get one the quality of the picture is incredible.

Times have indeed changed. Where to next? Well… the next picture was taken using a mobile phone an HTC Touch – not bad considering it’s a phone.

NIKON D300

This shot was taken with a NIKON D300 and a 60mm Macro lens on a tripod. The image is sharp. The D300 is however very heavy – much heavier then even the older Nikkormat FTN above. As a result it is very difficult to hold steadily and to use in the field. In addition to this the menu structure is so full of options that I prefer to set the camera to manual – and set the ISO, aperture and shutter speed manually – it is the only way I know what the camera is doing.

 CANON G9

The shot below of a lichen on a red background was taken with the Canon G9. The shot was taken in manual mode - this is the only mode that allows you full control of the camera. The lense at the widest angle and as close to the subject as possible. The G9 is a handy camera when out hiking with others (often you do not have much time to take your shots). It is also much lighter and less cumbersome than any SLR. I would suggest that you only use this camera in manual.