Better digital photos

Tip 3: Get superclose

Since the early roots of photography, people have been fascinated with capturing the world up close -- superclose, bumps-on-a-frog close. Most digital cameras come with a macro mode that allows you to get very close to your subject. Sometimes this mode is simply called 'close-up' and is denoted by a flower icon on your camera. Depending on your camera, close can be defined as anything from 150mm to 450mm. But what if you want to see the very pores? This tip will help you get started.

Here are a few ways to get these types of startling shots.

The first way is to buy a macro lens that is designed specifically for this type of shooting. Unfortunately, these lenses are often quite pricey.

A second option is to buy extension tubes for your dSLR. An extension tube is a light-tight tunnel that extends the distance from your lens to the camera body, thereby increasing magnification -- the greater the distance, the more magnification. But what if your digital camera isn't an SLR or doesn't take interchangeable lenses?

The third, and most affordable, option is to buy a close-up lens that mounts on top of your current lens, the same way that filters attach. Some cameras have adaptors for these auxiliary lenses. But if yours doesn't, third-party manufacturers such as Raynox have devised clever workarounds to enable this capability on just about any digital camera. The advantages are that you don't have to buy a whole new lens and you can use the close-up lens with any camera, including an SLR.

Close enough for you?

A few things to note:

• Shooting 50mm away from a subject is tricky because the lens has very little tolerance for being even a little too far or too close to the object. If you move out of that 50mm in-focus area, your object will quickly get soft. This means that to take really good shots you need to mount your camera on a tripod.
• Find a good location to shoot the object. Place the object on a table with a white background, either cloth or paper. Ideally, you want your camera to be facing straight at the object. So get a chair and sit down in front of your camera.
• One advantage to shooting with a tripod is that you can have long exposures without having to worry about camera shake. To be safe, either use a shutter cable or, if your camera can't accept one, the built-in self-timer. Even the shake from holding down the shutter button can blur the image.
• Before taking your shot, it's a good idea to measure the white-point of the image and set your camera accordingly. This will save you lots of colour-balancing work later in Photoshop. For most digital cameras, this is done by selecting the Measure White-point feature on your camera and holding the shutter halfway down. The camera will then measure the light of your image and base the white-point on the particular lighting you are using. If you can't measure the white-point manually, some cameras will let you choose from a menu of presets, such as Tungsten, Fluorescent or Daylight. Set your camera appropriately to get the best colour balance possible.