Page 114 - (DK) Advanced Photography Guide

112 EXPLAINING | MACRO LENSES

SHOOTING IN MACRO

Macro photography is the art and science and few of them have a particularly close
of shooting extremely close-up subjects. focusing distance, which limits the size of the
Technically, a macro photograph is one in projected image. To shoot macro, you’ll need
which the size of the image projected by to use one or more of the accessories that
the lens onto the sensor is life-size or larger. shorten a lens’s minimum focusing distance,
All lenses have a minimum focusing distance, or attach a macro lens to your camera.

MAGNIFICATION FACTOR

A lens’s magnification factor describes the size of the image macro capabilities, projecting an image that is life-size or
projected onto the sensor relative to the actual size of the larger. Macro properties may also be shown as a ratio: a 1:1
subject. A magnification factor of 1x or higher indicates true ratio is equivalent to 1x magnification, 2:1 is 2x, and so on.

SUBJECT MAGNIFICATION RESULT ON SENSOR
HALF LIFE-SIZE
At a magnification factor of 0.5x, the
image of the subject is half life-size on
the camera’s sensor. The image of an
18mm-wide subject would be 9mm
on the sensor, a quarter of the width
of a full-frame sensor.

LIFE-SIZE
Jump to 1x magnification, and the image
of the subject is life-size on the camera’s
sensor. An 18mm-wide subject will
now appear 18mm wide on the sensor,
or half the width of a full-frame sensor.

TWICE LIFE-SIZE
Increase the magnification to 2x, and
the image of the subject appears on the
camera’s sensor at twice its real-life size.
The image of the 18mm subject is now
36mm and will fill the entire width of a
full-frame sensor.

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