Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] Re: Macrophotography questions

Subject: [OM] Re: Macrophotography questions
From: "Jeff Keller" <jrk_om@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 10:23:42 -0800
A book that is often recommended is John Shaw's Closeups in Nature.

Your OM-2N is an excellent camera for macrophotography. The auto exposure 
will be very helpful.

It looks like you can often  put the flower where ever you want. A good 
camera stand, if you don't already have one, would be very useful. The 
Olympus made OM part is
http://olympus.dementia.org/eSIF/om-sif/macrophotogroup/vst-1.htm

If you look on ebay for 7579201018 you can see a picture of a "complete" 
macro setup.

The stand and bellows are most useful for higher magnifications. If you keep 
this setup in mind you might be able to slowly accumulate pieces that all 
work together. The Olympus stand is fairly expensive but Vivitar and 
probably others made similar stands.

The Zuiko 50mm f3.5 macro lens would be a good first lens. Most likely the 
zooms you have won't get close enough. The 50/3.5 can be bought for about 
$75. You will probably also want to get a 25mm extention tube to use with it 
(about $30). Normally for outdoors photos you would want a longer focal 
length. Since you seem to have control over the flower, the 50mm should be 
easy to work with.

There any many very good 90mm macro lenses. Vivitar Series 1 90mm f2.5, 
Tamron SP 90mm f2.5, Tamron 90mm f2.8, Tokina 90mm f2.5, and the much more 
expensive Zuiko 90mm f2. These lenses will let you position the camera 
further away from the flower but for lower magnifications would be too far 
away from the flower to use the stand mentioned above. With the exception of 
the Zuiko these lenses normally sell for about $120-$170.

If you decide to go for extreme closeups the 38/2.8 and 20/2 can be used on 
the bellows to give images that look like a microscope view
http://olympus.dementia.org/eSIF/om-sif/lensgroup/38mmf28.htm
These lenses normally sell for about $275.

Take a look at Alan Wood's excellent site
http://www.alanwood.net/photography/olympus/index.html

-jeff

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Matthew Bristol" <bristolm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

I recently inherited a used OM-2n and a set of lenses .  Included are a
Zuiko 50mm, a Vivitar 80-200mm w/ macro, and a Makita 20-80mm w/macro
(I'm not sure about that last one, I'm writing this from work w/o the
lens in front of me and I'm completely new to SLR's).

snip

I have done a bunch of macrophotography with digital point and shoots.
I grow orchids, and they tend to be the subject of most of my shots.  I
like shots of individual flowers, which range in size from ~2cm and up,
and then I also enjoy taking extreme close-up shots of internal
structures.  Here are some examples of shots I've done before:
I would like to be able to do similar shots with my new Olympus.  What
accessories would you most recommend to get me started?  I've seen
accessories like the bellows, and would like to get one eventually, but
I am thinking of starting much smaller scale.  Also, can anyone
recommend any good books for starting out in macrophotography with
slr's?



==============================================
List usage info:     http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies:        olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz