NewBie Question: Taking high quality pics of small objects

Hi,
I have a nice digital camera with zoom and I'd like to take a close up,
high qualith pic of a figurine I have and make it my PC background, but
when I get close it gets fuzzy. Do I need a special lens or filter or
something?

Does your nice digital camera by chance have a close-up setting,
usually indicated by an icon of a flower?

On Jan 4, 3:44 pm, wrote:
Hi,
I have a nice digital camera with zoom and I'd like to take a close up,
high qualith pic of a figurine I have and make it my PC background, but
when I get close it gets fuzzy. Do I need a special lens or filter or
something?

Depends on your camera, some can focus down to 1/2", others to 5". Most have
a special "Makro" setting (flower symbol) to activate for correct AF. If you
need depth of field you should not work with the larges aperture (if you can
select Aperture Priority use a medium to small aperture (high value). Use a
tripod or mini - tripod to keep your camera steady. Extra lighting might
help as well (the built in flash does not work in most cases).


schrieb im Newsbeitrag
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Hi,
I have a nice digital camera with zoom and I'd like to take a close up,
high qualith pic of a figurine I have and make it my PC background, but
when I get close it gets fuzzy. Do I need a special lens or filter or
something?

wrote:

Hi,
I have a nice digital camera with zoom and I'd like to take a close up,
high qualith pic of a figurine I have and make it my PC background, but
when I get close it gets fuzzy. Do I need a special lens or filter or
something?

Does your camera have a setting for Macro? Macro is for close-ups.
Something to keep the camera steady might help also as if you use
flash you might swamp the object in light.

--
Paul (Need a lift she said much obliged)
-------------------------------------------------------
Stop and Look
http://www.geocities.com/dreamst8me/

On 4 Jan 2007 12:44:06 -0800, wrote:

Hi,
I have a nice digital camera with zoom and I'd like to take a close up,
high qualith pic of a figurine I have and make it my PC background, but
when I get close it gets fuzzy. Do I need a special lens or filter or
something?

Check the camera's manual to find out what the closest focus distance
is, then don't exceed it. Take the picture at that minimum distance.
The figurine will be kind of small in the picture. Then use software
to blow up the figurine part. You can use Irfanview for this ... a
free download at
http://www.irfanview.com/.

KS

wrote:
Hi,
I have a nice digital camera with zoom and I'd like to take a close up,
high qualith pic of a figurine I have and make it my PC background, but
when I get close it gets fuzzy. Do I need a special lens or filter or
something?

Which digital camera is it?

Most digital P&S cameras cannot do close-up of figurines without extra
help. They simply do not have the closer focus distance necessary. In
layman's term, your camera gets fuzzy because it can not focus close
enough to the figurine.

You'll need to get a set of close-up lenses. The set is basically three
glorified magnifying glasses that could be mounted to the front of a
lens. They are referred to as +1, +2, and +4 diopter, which stands for
the strength of magnifying. You can stack them for more power.

You'll also need a lens adapter for your digital camera, if it can't
accept filters readily. If you tell us what digital camera you have, we
can tell you if an adapter exists. If no adapter exists, you'll have to
make your own. Or you can simply hold the close-up lenses in front of
your camera as you shoot.

Chieh
--
Camera Hacker - http://www.CameraHacker.com/

wrote:
Hi,
I have a nice digital camera with zoom and I'd like to take a close up,
high qualith pic of a figurine I have and make it my PC background, but
when I get close it gets fuzzy. Do I need a special lens or filter or
something?

If, as others mention, you do not have a Macro or closeup setting, then
yes, you need a set of lenses called supplemental, plus, or closeup
lenses. How expensive they are depends on the size (filter diameter)
of your lens. If it is a small lens, they are reasonably cheap. They
are expensive only on the large lenses for SLR cameras.

I personally prefer the effect of using these lenses rather than macros
on many lenses. On many "macro" lenses the macro effect only works at
long (telephoto) position. The use of the plus or supplemental lenses
using a shorter focal length makes the object look larger, more
massive. This is frequently what you want with figurines.

Some cheaper digicams do not have filter threads for these closeup
lenses. In this case you need to buy an adapter that mounts to your
existing lens and provides a threaded ring into which you screw the
filters. In any case, you need to know the thread diameter of the lens
or the adapter (in mm.). You buy the set according to that diameter.