Macro(micro) photography magnification levels [View all]

[Major Nikon]

For those who want to get into close up photography, but don't really know where to start, I thought I'd post some examples of different magnification levels so that you can get an idea of the capability of different lenses with different maximum magnification levels. There are many ways to do close up photography. You can modify standard lenses with extension tubes, you can reverse mount standard lenses and/or stack them this way with other lenses, you can use bellows (which is just another method of extension), you can use diopters which are like filters which screw on to the end of a lens, you can use a macro lens, or you can combine some of these things. For most people just getting into this who have a SLR or some other type of interchangeable lens camera, I would recommend they buy an actual macro lens if they can't focus close enough with their existing equipment. With some of the other methods there are either complicated technical issues, or the quality falls off pretty quickly and both of those things can be very frustrating for the beginner. An actual macro lens can make your life a whole lot simpler, and for many camera types there is an abundance of macro lenses on the used and refurbished market that make the price of entry not all that high. One other equipment recommendation I will make is to get a decent tripod if you don't already have one. There are ways to hand hold and get good macro shots, but this really requires a bit more equipment and advanced techniques to do this. For those who are interested, I can go into more specific equipment recommendations that fits what equipment you may already have and what you're trying to do. I can also cover some of the technical challenges you're likely to run into when first learning close up photography.

The camera equipment used here is a Nikon D7000 with a Nikon 55mm/2.8 AIS (manual focus) micro lens. This lens has a maximum magnification level of .5x (1:2), but with extension tubes can achieve much higher magnification levels and still retain excellent quality. The pictures listed are cropped because the actual pictures would be much to high resolution to post in their native format. They are intended to show the level of detail that can be achieved at different magnifications. Most lenses I've seen that are designated as 'Macro' (Nikon calls them 'Micro'), will do at least .5x (AKA 1:2). So this is my starting point. What .5x means is that the full frame image on the media (film or digital sensor) will be one half the actual size of the object. Most digital SLRs are approximately a little less than 1" across on the longest side (APS-C format). This means that you can focus close enough to fill the entire frame with an object that is 2" across. A macro lens that has a 1x maximum magnification level would be able to fill the frame with a 1" object. So the bigger number means more magnification. At about .3x (1:3) magnification level, you're going to start noticing details that are hard to make out with the unaided eye.

The first picture is a resized full frame photo of my old Bulova watch taken at .5x. This should give you an idea of how closely you can focus with pretty much any lens designated as macro or micro. The next picture is the same picture, but this time cropped and not resized to show the level of detail available. The last picture is a cropped photo, not resized, which shows the level of detail available at 1.3x, which is probably a much higher level of detail than what most beginning close up photographers are going to need. This was done with the same camera setup, but using extension tubes to decrease the minimum focusing distance and increase the maximum magnification level.


.5x resized photo


.5 cropped photo


1.3x cropped photo