Photography - Lense selection for FUJI S2 DIGITAL CAMERA

Although many of the shorter focal length zooms have a 'Macro' setting and
can offer a close focus setting, true macro is actually when an object can
be photographed at 1:1 size (or at least better than 1:2; that means that
if an ring is, for example, 20mm in diameter, the image on a 35mm film will
also be 20mm diameter.

There are a few ways to achieve this, most commonly would be to either use a
true Macro lens, such at the Micro Nikkor range (or equivalent lenses from
other manufacturers such as Sigma, Tokina, Tamron etc.) or to use a non-zoom
lens of appropriate focal length with extension tubes or bellows, which
allows the lens to be further away from the film-plane and thus closer
focus.

The use of a true Macro lens, which are all fixed focal length, is
preferable to the use of tubes or bellows as the lens will be designed for
this purpose, and thus almost certainly give a better image, in addition all
of the lenses electronic functions will still be operational.

The choice of focal length is crucially important. If the lens is too
short (usually less than 50mm) then you could encounter distortion of the
image, similar to that encountered with wide-angle lenses, however if the
lens is too long (greater than 135mm) then the depth of field becomes
miniscule, so that even when focussing down on a very small object, such as
a precious stone, could have one side of the object in pin-sharp focus and
the other side of the stone completely blurred. This problem can be
alleviated to a certain extent by the correct use of lighting and a slow
exposure with a small aperture (between f32 and f16), however most lenses
perform best about midway in the aperture region (for a f2.8 lens it's
roughly around f8 and f11).

The most common Macro lenses in the Nikkor range are the 50mm, 60mm, and
105mm (I have had one of these excellent lenses).

I would suggest that the 60mm might be a good focal length to start with, as
it does not excessively distort and has a better depth of field than the
105mm (which also happens to be about the best focal length for portraiture
photography). It also means that you don't need to be too far away from
your object being photographed, such as the necklaces, however the longer
105mm may be a better lens for individual items such as gemstones, earrings
and items up to rings.

The other crucial items of equipment you will need will be a tripod, remote
shutter release (I don't know what fittings your camera has) and good
lighting so as to ensure even (possibly diffuse) lighting, as high contrast
shadows will eliminate detail of the object being photographed.

I've never found that auto-focus works successfully in Macro, and as your
object won't be moving and the camera will be on a tripod, manual focussing
is preferable.

NB. All of the focal lengths above are based upon the use of 35mm film sized
image, the size of the cameras image plane will affect the focal length of
lens required as, for example, 50mm is a lens on a standard lens on 35mm,
however it's a wide-angle on a medium format 120/220 film camera (6 x 6 cm
image), and an 80mm lens on 35mm is a short telephoto, whereas it's a
standard lens on medium format.

I hope that this helps.

Regards,

Tony

"shrestha" wrote in message
om...
I just bought FUJI S2 digital camera with 28-100 f3.5-5.6 and 70-300
f4-5.6 Nikkor lenses. It was package deal so i had to buy those
lenses. I am in business of selling jewelries in internet. I take
pictures of different size jewelry pieces. They are as large as 15" x
6" necklaces or 3" x 3" bracelets down to as small as 1/2" rings or
pins. What macro lenses are recommended to take pictures of these
items to get sharpest pictures possible? Thanks for your comments.