Microphotographie

Peut-on faire de la microhotographie avec un objectif 55-200mm ou 18-55 ?

I used to enjoy using a 50mm lens with a stack of extension tubes. That worked well for me. I have a dedicated 100mm macro lens now - though I still use the tubes to get in even closer.

J’aimais utiliser un objectif 50 mm avec une pile de tubes d’extension. Cela a bien fonctionné pour moi. J’ai maintenant un objectif macro dédié de 100 mm, même si j’utilise toujours les tubes pour me rapprocher encore plus. [Translated via Google]

Why is this not English?

Forum participants are not required to speak English.

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Okay but then why is there a separate thing for Spanish?

The answer really depends on why you want to do macro photography with these lenses

If you are looking to buy a lens for macro photography, it is best to get a purpose built macro lens, I like the Laowa lenses. Beware of lenses claiming to be macro lenses that have reproduction ratios less than 1:1

If you have an 18-55 or 55-200mm lens that is not specifically a macro lens, and cannot afford to buy another lens for macro, there is equipment that can be added on to the lens to make it function as a macro lens for a far lower price than buying a new lens. Specifically extension tubes and Raynox clip on lenses.
If using extension tubes it is best to have a lens with a short focal length, so the 18-55 will be better than the 55-200. If using the raynox clip on lens I’m not really sure, I know it should work on 18-55, but I’m not really familiar with long lenses

If you want a lens that can do both macro and longer distance photography (eg to switch between an insect and a nearby bird) then extension tubes and Raynox add-ons won’t work, you need a purpose built lens that has both infinity focus and macro capability, like many of the Laowa macro lenses

If you want to specialize in very small insects, and have some experience with macro photography, consider a super macro lens with a reproduction ratio of 2:1 or 2.5:1 (most of the Laowa lenses range from infinity focus to 2:1, and then the one specialized one I use ranges from 2.5:1 to 5:1)

EDIT: This is about macrophotography, I misread the original post as talking about that, but now I see it says microphotography, not macro. microphotography is different and not a subject I know much about

EDIT 2: Close up lenses with less than 1:1 reproduction ratio are not objectively bad lenses, but they lack the magnification that a true macro lens has

See https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/spanish-subcategories/9661

There aren’t separate categories for French.

If you have further comments on organization/treatment of different languages on the forum, please create a new topic in Forum Feedback.

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It depends how one is defining “macro”. Outside of macrophotography circles, many people use it in a more general sense as a synonym for “close-up photography of small subjects”.

It would be useful to hear more from the original poster about what kind of photography and what subjects they are interested in. I note that they asked about “microphotography”, which is not necessarily the same thing as “macrophotography”.

(Apologies for not trying to respond in French – I can read it a little, but my ability to compose a coherent sentence is virtually zero.)

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If someone uses a specific photography term for what they are trying to do, I assume that is what they want to do, and wanted to warn them about lenses that are close up but not really macro lenses, those lenses will not get the same level of close up images that many of the macro photographers on iNat get

It would be useful to hear more from the original poster about what kind of photography and what subjects they are interested in.

I did try to account for uncertainty in what they want to do in my comment

Good catch, lost that in translation

My point was that there is no reason to assume that someone with no experience with macro photography is using the term the way a macrophotographer would; so there is a risk of talking in circles and the first step needs to be to establish what we are in fact talking about – otherwise a statement like “beware of lenses that have reproduction ratios less than 1:1” is misleading, because it may be understood to mean that these lenses are objectively bad, when in fact they may be quite good at what they do, they merely do not fulfill the task of providing 1:1 magnification.

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My point is that if one is looking at macro photography, such as some of the higher quality insect photography here on iNat, and wants to replicate it, a lens with less than a 1:1 reproduction ratio is not really going to do that. I bought my first true macro lens recently (after 14 years of doing insect photography with macro mode on a point and shoot camera) and it was tricky because so many lenses claiming to be macro are 0.5:1 or even 0.3:1. These are lenses with better close up capability than most but if you are looking at stuff on the internet labeled as “macro photography” you will not really be able to replicate it with these lenses (unless you use add-ons I mentioned above for converting a lens to macro, in which case you don’t need to buy a new lens at all)