Please advise on a good camera to do upclose shots.

[ElectroSoldier]

On 5/10/2020 at 11:09 PM, habu2 said:

I don’t mean to sound harsh but you are wasting money on those.  Good glass costs good money, and any cheap add-ons like you listed are going to suck in corner resolution. You don’t need to spend a ton on a macro lens, and true macro photography has incredibly shallow depth of field. 
 

You don’t say what lens you are using on your T6 body but IMO the lens is not the problem. Back up from your subject. Put the camera on a tripod and select aperture priority (AV) mode and set your aperture to f/8 or smaller. Set your ISO to 400 if you are indoors and using artificial light. Let the camera pick the shutter speed. Don’t freak out if your exposure is extremely long/slow, that’s why you need a tripod. If you still don’t have enough DoF then stop down to f/11 or f/16 and try again. You have a fully adjustable camera that is capable of taking the picture you want, you just need to learn how to use it. 
 

Been doing photography for almost 50 years, try this and I guarantee your pics will be better. 
 

.

 

 Exactly that.
Even the standard kit lens, which I think is an 18-55mm will do if you move the camera away from the subject pick up the f-Stop and decrease the shutter speed. The AV on the settings dial will tell the camera to priorities the apature over the shutter speed, and will auto adjust the shutter speed to compensate for the small apature (larger the number the smaller the apature)

 

You have what you need, its just a case of realising how to use it better than you are doing right now.

a good solid tripod or other base to mount the camera to is all you need

Edited May 26, 2020 by ElectroSoldier

[chukw]

I use a Canon PowerShot Elph 340HS- I'm sure there are newer versions, but these little Canon cameras have always done it for me.

[John B]

3 hours ago, dai phan said:

I have used the tripod but I did not any better results. I think I am happy with the latest images but still blurry in some areas of the plane. You can see my latest photos on the GWH T-33 WIP thread. Dai 

 

That image looks fine.   The images in your T-33 thread look good, too.   There's one overarching secret to getting infinite depth-of-field and having everything near and far perfectly in focus for models -> there's a lot of illusion.   It's impossible for your eyes to have something 2 inches from you nose and 2 miles away perfectly focused at the same time.   Your eye changes focus when you look at each object.   The reason why your perceive it differently in a picture is because different areas of the picture aren't re-focused as you look at them.

 

Let me go back to my list and adjust it for what you're trying to do -

  1.  - Use 18-55mm lens (aka the "kit" lens)

  2. Shot outside on bright days in the shade =OR= outside on overcast days  Turn on both work lights and open the blinds.

  3. Camera set up on tripod 1 to 2 ft away from subject with legs NOT extended more than 1 section.

      3a. Better to be a little farther away from the model and zoomed out a little more than just the area you want the attention on. 

  4. IS switch (Image stabilizer for Canon lenses.) on lens turned "off"

  5.  Set the ISO to 100

  6. Mode wheel set to "Av" and F-stop set between "14" and "22" 

  7. Remember to adjust the lens length to a little more area than I want to see in the final image.  (See step 14)

  8. Focus switch on lens set to "Manual" (On my Canon lenses, switch it from Af to M)

  9. While zoomed in on rear LCD display, I adjusted focus point about 1/3 from the front of the model. focus on the area you want to highlight.

  10. There was a shutter countdown function in the old Rebel Xsi.   I set it to take the picture 10 secs AFTER I pressed the shutter release button.  (Newer Canon SLRs can have the shutter button triggered with the Canon App on your phone.   I haven't tried it.)

   11.  Once I pressed the shutter release button, I took my hands off the camera and moved away from the tripod.

   12. After the "amber"  red light turned off and I heard the second "click", I knew the camera had finished taking the exposure.

   13.  I took a couple more shots with the F-stop a couple of values up and down from where I started.  

   14.  After shooting, I cropped the images in my computer to remove stuff I didn't want from the picture.  Example the parts of the model closer and farther than the area of interest will eventually look out of focus.*   Crop those areas of the image out.

   15.  (OPTIONAL, but I always ended up doing it)   See dog/my hair, feather, dust, finger prints, shadows or leaf/twig/insect in the image.  Slap my forehead.  Go back outside and retake pictures. 

  

*Remember how I said getting something very close and very far all in focus is a lot of illusion?   Cropping out the the areas that are really blurry makes everything look focused.   

 

  Here are some tricks I found work for me -

   1.  Make the area you want people to look at the area that you try to focus.   Look at this image and read this - "I painted the engine cowl white and used red decal for the dots." Click here.    You're looking at the prop hub and the engine of the model?   You're not noticing that the letters on the tail of the model are out of focus?

   2.  Use a plain background.   No one notices when a plain background is blurry.

   3.  Whenever possible, take images of multiple objects so that they are the same distance to the camera.  This allows you to worry less about depth-of-field.  Examples -> Click here #1  and Click here #2

   4.  Position the subject so that parts of it isn't really close to the camera and another part is really far from the camera when trying to it all in focus.   Click here

   5.  You can position parts of the subject really close or really far if you only want to focus on a particular area and don't care that the near and far parts are out-of focus.  Click Here #1  Click Here #2  Click Here #3

 

The images in your GWH T-33 thread look fine and already look "more in focus" than the A-7 image you posted earlier.   I'm not an expert in photography and I learned by playing with the camera and asking questions.  Since it's all digital, play with camera as much as you like.   I think you're learning technique and will just keep getting better.

Edited June 6, 2020 by John B
Sheesh. Grammar and typos.

[John B]

On 5/27/2020 at 7:48 AM, chukw said:

I use a Canon PowerShot Elph 340HS- I'm sure there are newer versions, but these little Canon cameras have always done it for me.

What am I supposed to be looking at?   It all seems like a well-focused...   ..."seat" to me. 😉

[southwestforests]

On 5/27/2020 at 9:48 AM, chukw said:

I use a Canon PowerShot Elph 340HS- I'm sure there are newer versions, but these little Canon cameras have always done it for me.

Those little Power Shots have filled my needs and beyond.

Have a 2009 one, an SX-something, a 110 IS, I think, which has been used so much the print has worn off the body, & a few year old SX 720HS.

 

4 hours ago, John B said:

*Remember how I said getting something very close and very far all in focus is a lot of illusion?   Cropping out the the areas that are really blurry makes everything look focused.

That brings to mind - would it help to use a larger image size and higher quality, i.e. higher pixel count?

 

[habu2]

7 hours ago, southwestforests said:

Those little Power Shots have filled my needs and beyond.

Unlock your Powershot with CHDK. I use it on an A560 and an SX130 and it allows you to shoot RAW, adds AV & TV exposure modes, and adds features like full histograms and zebra peaking. And specific to this thread, CHDK has a DoF calculator and can auto set hyperfocal distance. Used multiple versions for years without a problem. It does not permanently change your camera and you can switch it on/off easily. 
 

https://chdk.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ

 

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Edited June 6, 2020 by habu2

[southwestforests]

With my health the mess it is that's something I'd probably not often be able to use. 
Habu2, in order to be able to go to creative writers group yesterday, Saturday, morning I had to pretty much do nothing Friday, not even the one load of laundry, and then after writers group from 10 to 12 and going out for a hamburger I was too run down to do any model building, orr reading new book, and ended up having to sleep most of the rest of the day.