There is often much confusion amongst new photographers between macro, micro close up difference and how each photography genre differs from one another.
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For starters, macro micro photography usually refers to the same thing. Nikon names their range of ‘macro lenses’ with the word ‘micro’. Canon on the other hand, calls them macro lenses. For example, Nikons top macro lens is called AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED lens. Notice the term micro in that name.
Now for comparisons sake, Canon’s top macro lens is called a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. This time, instead of seeing the term micro, you’ll notice the term macro within the lens name.
The word macro means big, whereas the word micro mean small. So how is it that these two terms related?
If the subject you are photographing is small and you want to make it look big, you end up with a “macro” view of a “micro” subject.
Macro photography is that which is taken with a dedicated macro lens. A real macro lens has the capability of achieving in the least a 1:1 magnification. Just because a camera has the word macro written on it, doesn’t make it a true macro lens. Both the Nikon and Canon lenses mentioned above, are considered real macro lenses. If you’re not sure how to recognize a real macro lens, you may find an earlier article useful called, What is a real macro lens.
Close up photography is the act of photographing objects such as flowers or insects in close range so the subject you are photographing fills the frame. In other words, it’s the act of photographing subjects close up. This is easily achievable with any lens, even a 300mm telephoto lens.
Macro photography is in essence close up photography as well. However, close up photography is not always considered as true macro photography. For example, if you have a lens that is NOT considered a real macro lens, yet offers a macro setting (as many do nowadays), this is usually referred to as being close up photography, and not true macro.
Capturing the finest detail is one of the main differences between macro, micro close up photography.
Macro lenses are expensive for a reason. That being, a true macro lens allows the photographer to capture finer detail than would otherwise have been seen. For example, the hairs on an insects face, or the pattern in its eye.
Take the two photographs below for example. The first image is a very good example of a close up photograph, taken with a Nikon telephoto lens. While the second photograph is a macro shot, allowing for bigger magnification and showing the finest detail.
Hope this explains the difference between macro micro and close up photography. There is a difference, not only in the gear needed to take each genre, there’s a small difference in the technique each of the photography genre’s require to nail a great shot.
We all love to see images of extreme magnification to show a world which we can’t experience with our own eyes but just like all cinematography, this is hard to do well.
The choice right lens for the specific shot is key and this article aims to explain the differences between Close Up, Macro and Micro photography/cinematography and in particular, to introduce the cinematographer to a relatively recent new type of lens for motion-picture, made by Infinity Photo-Optical and which use microscope techniques to create unique images, using a 2 path optical process which increases magnification , producing shots not possible using traditional optics and which require different shooting techniques to achieve the best results.
This article seeks to give the cinematographer a better understanding of these concepts and to improve their close-up macro and micro photography/cinematography and is broken up into 5 distinct sections:
PART 1 – The fundamentals of Macro/Micro imaging
PART 2 – Using Nelsonian Micro Lenses
PART 3 – Magnification, iris and working distance
PART 4 – Manipulating Perspective and Depth of Field using Nelsonian Optics
PART 5 – Popular Macro lenses and adapters
For regular imaging, the size of the image formed on the sensor is much smaller than the subject itself, so the image of a 10-metre tree might only produce an image 1 cm tall on the sensor. That is a ratio of 1: and is what we are used to seeing with regular lenses.
The distinction for a lens to be classified as a true macro requires it to produce an image size that is as big or bigger than the subject and up to a factor of ten-to-one (X10 or 10:1).
However, if you require images with a greater magnification than x10, then we must enter the realms of micro images, which use microscope imaging techniques to produce both higher image quality and levels of magnification too.
We have six problems to solve if you have a given shot to create and this article aims to help you to decide which lenses and accessories to use to create your desired shot and what factors ought to be considered.
Some film lenses have a macro capability but if a given film lens is unable to shoot macro images, then two common methods can be used to reduce the minimum focus of a given lens and thus increase the object size. This involves using either Extension Tubes or Dioptres.
An extension tube increases lens magnification by an amount equal to the extension distance divided by the lens focal length.
For example, adding a 25mm extension tube to a 50mm lens will give a magnification gain of 0.5X.
Therefore, if the lens’s original magnification was 0.15X, then the new magnification will be 0.15X+0.5X=0.65X.
The closest focusing distance will also decrease to ~210 mm.
In simple terms, a diopter 1 reduces the infinity point of focus of a lens down to 3’3 (1m), thereby reducing the minimum focus distance accordingly.
Stronger dioptres will reduce this further and ond of course when using a close up lens you can now focus even closer to your subject.
A +1 combined with a +2 will equal a +3, while a +2 combined with a +4 will equal a +6, and so on.
Lenses don’t need to be sophisticated or indeed expensive to give Macro images.
Here are some comparison images of a plate of coffee beans with various macro lenses and all look very alike.
Extreme magnification requires specialist optics, since regular Macro lenses can provide physical constraints, due to the size of the front element and necessarily the proximity to the subject.
Whilst all of the above shots have a similar field of view and need to be shot close to the subject, it is clear that a narrow ‘snorkle’ type lens arrangement allows the operator to shoot closer to the subject for a more ‘immersive’ shot.
Image magnification and focal length all play their part in influencing depth of field
Put simply, the best macro lenses shoot excellent image quality at low levels of magnification which can compare with micro lenses. However micro lenses also allow much higher levels of magnification with extremely high image quality.
However, depth of field is also a consideration, since as you can see from the 125mm MikroMak image of the flower above, high magnification at high focal lengths can create a shallow depth of field which makes focussing very challenging but there is a great technique to allow the cinematographer to both shoot high magnification images AND do so with a high depth of field.
This will be explored in greater detail later.
However, this article is aimed at cinematographers, so let’s look at some beautiful examples of video shot with Nelsoniantm micro lenses.
Two similar shots of a chive plant taken by a Laowa Probe 24mm lens (above) vs the MikroMak 25mm lens (below).
Whilst the Laowa lens makes a beautiful images, in my opinion the Nelsoniantm optics of the MikroMak probe lens below is visibly sharper.
Optical laws of physics necessarily dictate that a very close object distance achieves high levels of magnification and an extremely shallow depth of field, as can be seen by the shot inside a daisy flower below, though his also means that available levels of magnification are very limited too, since only subjects of a few centimetres from the front of the lens are focusable.
Unless the object is at precisely 90 degrees, much of the image will be out of focus. From the examples below, a critical setup by Paul Harcourt Davies shoots the eggs of the large white moth perfectly
As cinematographers, we like to use /f stops so that depth of field is predictable and whilst those rules apply with regular macro lenses and borescope probe macro lenses (like the Laowa 24mm probe lens), Nelsoniantm lenses seem to work differently, as you can see from the images produced.
My experience was that I compared shots taken with a 100mm macro and the InfinProbe/HM micro (also 100mm equivalent) and found that the same field of view, allowed a wider depth of field with the InfiniProbe. I used as much light as I could to ensure that the macro worked at the smallest iris setting possible (F22), yet the InfiniProbe combination consistently made images with more DoF. The images tell the story.
During lock-down, I took a number of Nelsoniantm, macro and probe lenses home to play in the garden and lit the images by sunlight, believing that this would be an excellent natural light source and avoid the need for external lights to help me to learn about macro photography in order to write this paper.
Whilst initial results were perfectly acceptable, I later learned that what I really needed to do was to fully bathe the subject in from of the front lens in light to achieve the very best results, which is why I undertook several further shoots in order to show all lenses at their very best.
As a physicist by training, the reason for this seemed difficult for me to understand, so I was referred to a 100 year old book on microscopy by Edmund J Spitta, who explained that a large number of isolated beams are required to form a regular pattern in order to show a complete range of prismatic colours, which become known as diffraction-spectra…
In English, this means that if you bathe the object in angular light, then the results are noticeably sharper. The ‘angular’ adjective is key here.
You need to bathe the object in angular light and the results are noticeably sharper.
Paraphrased Edmund J Spitta, Microscopy, .
Dramatic lighting with shadows does not work for optimal macro images.
Probe lens manufacturers know this and both Infinity Photo-Optical MikroMak and TS-160 Robusto allow lighting to be mounted on their shafts using a standard 30mm diameter probe and Laowa probe lenses include a USB powered LED ring light built-into its front housing.
So, whilst my sun-lit examples included in this article look very crisp, the mathematics of diffraction concludes that sharper images and better results would have been possible if I had incorporated light from another angle when taking these images, which you can see with the saxophone, coffee bean and running shoe images.
I know that my colleagues will answer with the rhetorical question of how long is a piece of string but if you choose to use Nelsoniantm optics, then be prepared that they need a lot of light.
For reference, all of the images shot of the running shoes and coffee beans required 2 x Gemini 2×1 and 2 x Gemini 1×1 light panels to expose correctly images using the InfiniProbe and MikroMak lenses.
However be aware that I was shooting at 1/250s shutter speed to avoid blur and would instead have chosen a much slower 1/50s shutter for video which would have needed 1/2.5 of the light level used.
Because I was shooting stills and wanted to avoid shutter shake, I increased the ISO to compensate from 2,000 (at 1/50s) to 10,000 (at 1/250s).
Conclusion: Light from 2 angles and bathe the object in light and if you are using Nelsoniantm optics, then increase the light provision considerably but it will be worth it!
The 5 optics provided with the Infiniprobe TS-160 Robusto effectively give the cinematographer 5 x different lenses in one package.
The other three optics, called SFX-1, SFX-2 & SFX-3 are prime lenses designed to work for image 9′ (3m) away (see below), which makes them of very limited use.
The images below tell this story better though.
All above images are taken with InfiniProbe TS-160 with macro lens which is perhaps the most useful optic. This tiny optic fits to the front of the Infiniprobe TS-160 Robusto and allows a surprisingly high level of magnification (4x). The best part is that the image is shot the correct way up in common with other borescopes like the Laowa 24mm.
The HM Micro is to be used for close-up work (front optic less than 9’/3m from the subject. These images are of the laces shown above in extreme magnification.
Remember that shooting with the HM Micro means that the images shot are upside down because of the two-stage optical path of aerial imaging.
In order to shoot extremely high magnification, it is necessary for the front element to be extremely close to the subject.
Pictured is a InfiniProbe TS-160 Robusto Nelsonian lens with HM Micro lens.
When shooting up to 3m from a subject, you can still use the HM Micro optic.
They achieve a surprisingly high depth of field as can be seen in the shots above.
Everything sufficiently far away from then lens is in focus.
The other three optics, called SFX-1, SFX-2 & SFX-3 are prime lenses designed to work for image 9′ (3m) away. Whilst they do work for close-up images, they are not optimised for this purpose and this use ought to be discouraged, though my experience is that they can be used for close up work to a limited degree.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of macro vs micro lens. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
The SFX-1 is equivalent to a 100mm; SFX-2 equivalent to a 50mm and SFX-3 equivalent to a 33mm. The apparent reason that they are not called 100mm, 50mm & 33mm is that their equivalent focal length changes if the rear extension tubes are reduced in length. The idea is that everything from 3m onwards is focussed to infinity, though I found them of limited use. Some cinematographers have used them effectively though for close-up work, so the choice of how you use them is up to you, as all 5 optics are included in the TS-160 standard package.
What is clear however is that the projection nature of the Nelsoniantm lenses means that the image size can be increased indefinitely which makes them sensor independent. I am told that they can cover B4, 16mm, S35 and even FF (36mm x 24mm).
Technically, by adding tubes, the MikroMak or TS-160 Robusto InfiniProbe can project to 67mm sensors or 8x10in. plates if this was demanded.
In fact, the Infiniprobe TS-160 is supplied with 2 x 24mm extension tubes to allow it to cover Full Frame. By loosening a very small screw, you can remove one 24mm rear tubes which doubles the lens’s sensitivity and in doing so, it fully covers a S-35 area, so removing one extension tube is a very efficient way to shoot on S-35 format.
Further experimentation allowed me to add further tubes and this effectively zoom into the shot but is impractical, since it increases the level of light required enormously.
One implication of this design is that, with the exception of the Infiniprobe TS-160/macro optic combination, the image is captured upside down and will need to be inverted to correct it in post. Most quality cameras and indeed many monitors provide an image inversion facility to help whilst shooting but it is important to consider this so that you are not surprised when you use one for the first time.
Since the capability to flip the viewfinder is now commonly available and so too can the majority solid state recorders (Atomos etc), so this capability makes acquisition of inverted images easy.
It is worth mentioning that since lab scopes already invert their images and capture software automatically corrects this, so you can use micro accessories with Nelsonian optics, such as Zeiss lab scope cameras and let the software correct your images too.
Another fundamental lesson that I learned was the trade-off between magnification, distance to object and depth of field. All are connected and a complete understanding will help the cinematographer to achieve better results.
Firstly, the closer the object distance to the lens is, the higher is the magnification. This is a fundamental truism and is pretty obvious to the experienced operator. However if you consider that the angle of light in a highly magnified image is extremely narrow. This means that when shooting, the aperture adjustment (or Numerical Aperture for microscope lenses) becomes crucial to ensuring that the focus remains crisp as highly magnified images produce an extremely shallow depth of field.
It is worth mentioning at this point that the InfiniProbe TS-160 Robusto has specific lenses which are optimised to work at different objective distances from the subject. The cinematographer can use this to their advantage when they discover that they can shoot high resolution, high magnification images at some distance from the object. This is a very useful technique which I shall describe in detail in Part 3.
Conclusion: the closer the object distance to the lens, the higher is the magnification, unless you are using lenses which are optimised to work at a specific distance. In such an example, the above does not apply.
Just like in regular cinematography, a smaller aperture achieves a higher DOF.
However, the quality of the image will be ultimately governed by the quality of the lens and in particular, the size of the front diameter, since this will ultimately give the full range of light rays in order to create the sharpest image.
What it means in practice is that macro lenses with the largest front diameter will outperform those with narrow front diameters however this requires a rider if you are using microscope optics, since the necessary requirement to achieving high quality is to be able to accept diffracted rays from the subject.
The practical conclusion of this is that the Infinity Photo-Optical MikroMak which has a front element of 12mm diameter, manages to achieve higher resolution than the 24mm Laowa probe, which only has a 1.7mm front diameter.
The famous microscopist, Edward Milles Nelson is famous for creating the critical illumination of a microscope by setting the iris to the ‘Nelsonian point’.
For us non-microscopists, I can simplify this principle to inform you that lenses which are based on ‘Nelsonian optics’ have a single iris at which point the images are optimised. For the InfiniProbe TS-160, this iris point is shown very clearly with a white dot on the iris ring. The reason why the user is able to adjust the iris to deteriorate the image, is simply so that they can increase the light entering the lens in order to help with framing and focus and then reduce the iris to the critical point for exposure. The first generation MikroMak lenses, have the iris pre-set, though I am advised that a later design will offer the adjustable iris as per the TS-160.
For other lenses which don’t have the Nelsonian point marked, it is a fundamental truism that a smaller iris will give a better image quality to a wide-open image. This is a mathematical calculation, which is set for a given lens.
Also, a smaller iris will give a larger depth of field to a smaller iris, a concept which the cinematographer will be extremely familiar with and this is our next subject.
Conclusion: Ensure that you set your iris to the Nelsonian point or a reasonably closed iris for best results.
Magnification is magnification. The focal length in macro only means that a traditional lens must work closer than one of greater focal length to achieve the same magnification.
This means that a 24mm macro can achieve the same magnification as a 100mm macro but the object will need to be closer the front of the lens and this will necessarily change the perspective of the image.
Tokina 100mm Macro lens exposed at F22 for maximum DoF.
6″ to front element and 14″ to image plane. Shallowest DoF of 3 examples.
24mm Laowa Probe Lens with front element right up to subject (less than 1″). Distance to image plane: 28″. Exposed at F22 for max DoF.
DoF is increased on 100mm but front element is really close to subject.
InfiniProbe TS-160 Robusto Lens with HM Micro optic. Front element to subject is 5″. Distance to image plane: 16″. Exposed at Nelsonian point for optimal results. DoF is increased on 100mm but relative distance to subject gives cinematographer more options
InfiniProbe TS-160 with HM Micro Optic.
Front element is 17″ from subject and depth of field increases enormously.
Clearly, a wider lens will have some inherent wide-angle barrel distortion, so a longer macro lens may be preferable.
However, regular macro lenses may be too large to physically bring as close to the object as one may like and for this, probe lenses offer some advantage over conventional macros.
If the cinematographer wishes to ‘immerse’ the viewer into a macro shot, then the object needs to be brought extremely close to the front element and a narrow probe is more likely to make this possible and the extended range of focus will offer the operator more creative options to create the immersive shot.
Conclusion: probe lenses allow an immersive shot.
The fundamental truism that the wider the lens, the greater is the degree of distortion applies for macro and micro lenses, as it does for regular photo and cine lenses.
For this reason, the MikroMak and InfiniProbe TS-160 Nelsoniantm lenses include a selection of focal lengths in the package and a 125mm will give a perfectly flat image with imperceptible perspective and distortion. The nature of the material being shot may influence the focal length of lens selected, so for example, a circuit board will show a near perfect grid with this lens, whereas a 25mm will be far less forgiving.
The same is true when using the 24mm Laowa Probe lens. Being only 24mm, it will need to be brought very close to the subject in order to cover the same field of view as a 65mm or 100mm macro.
Conclusion: wide macro lenses will give more distortion than longer lenses.
The Laowa probe, Nelsonian InfiniProbe TS-160 Robusto and MikroMak lenses all cover both S-35 and Full Frame (36mm x 24mm), as they are projection-style optics and could cover larger sensors if used with longer expansion tubes.
Note also that
Pictures save many words – these great examples of depth of field manipulation illustrate how these lenses can be used to very great effect.
A great example of perspective manipulation, shot and starring Rob Stiff
TS-160 w/ HM Micro
Dr. Pepper ad shot by DP Stephen McGehee using InfiniProbe TS-160
Here are some examples which I shot in order to help to explain the principles.
Two shoes setup to achieve a high depth of field.
With the iris at F22 for the maximum possible depth of field, it is clear that it is not possible just 38″ from the subject to keep both shoes in focus using the 90mm Leitz macro.
It is fair to mention that the image on the left has slightly soft focus which was a user error, for which I apologise.
However, using the InfiniProbe with the Micro HM optic and exposed at the Nelsonian point, it achieves just this.
Comparing this with a wider focal length achieves the same result but with a different perspective. Here the 24mm Laowa probe lens almost keeps both shoes in focus but the InfiProbe with HM Micro achieves this with ease. However, note that the InfiniProbe with SFX-2 optic achieves a similar look to the 24mm (it has an effective focal length of 33mm) but the image is not optimised for close up work, though it looks good to me! I have left it in here for comparison purposes.
The important thing to mention here is that this and other Nelsoniantm lenses do not work like regular lenses, so you have to unlearn everything that you are used to doing in order to achieve the best results. I must confess here that it took me a couple of attempts to do this, as some habits are deeply engrained but I am glad that I did and can explain my experiences and tips for shooting to great effect and with spectacular results.
The InfinProbe TS-160 Robusto is not a zoom lens but it might be helpful to consider a continually-focusable microscope, where you can position your camera to achieve the best results.
To ensure that the cinematographer does not compromise the optics, three sets of optics are supplied, to enable either working close-up, really close-up or for working at a distance.
If you need more depth of field, then move further away from the subject and refocus – don’t worry about image quality suffering – providing you set the iris to its critical point (the Nelsonian point) and ensuring that your focus is pin-sharp, then the quality will be there.
Here I made another magical discovery – whilst optical laws dictate that the closer you are to an object, the shallower the depth of field is, the converse means that by moving away from the subject, both the depth of field increases and the need to focus reduces too, since pretty much everything appears sharp.
I am told by Jay Margolis, the President of Infinity Photo-Optical and inventor of the InfiniProbe TS-160 Robusto that if used correctly, that the cinematographer just need only to focus to infinity and only adjust the focus adjustment if needed, such is the large depth of field created by the TS-160 Robusto.
This will definitely come as an anathema to the cinematographer, as it took me some attempts to trust it but I am glad that I did, as the results are greatly improved as a result.
The Digital Cinema Society presents an exploration of Micro/Macro cinematography with three DPs including Bill Bennett, ASC, James Mathers, and Cameron Cannon. The trio photograph a variety of shots in order to evaluate the technology which includes not only the lenses, but also the SiSu Robotic Camera Arm, the Canon C500 MkII, and HMIs lighting, which was provided by K. The cinematographers share their insights in behind-the-scenes coverage from the tests that were shot at The Camera Division in North Hollywood, CA.
I have explained that the SFX optics are used with the InfiniProbe TS-160 for when the subject is more than 9’/3m from the front element, as this type of lens requires converging light rays.
IF you use them incorrectly, then the results will be poor and I have included such an example below to explain.
Using the above technique allows the cinematographer to manipulate both depth of field and also perspective, as a consequence of using different lens elements together.
Here are some of our most popular macro lenses and adapters for your convenience.
The popular aphorism “The right tools for the job” is entirely appropriate when shooting micro or macro images.
Sometimes, simpler is better, so using extension tubes or dioptres with your usual lenses may be able to give you the shot that you need without using specialist optics.
Whereas a macro can be extremely effective for an extreme close-up shot, probe lenses are unequalled for being able to provide the full immersive shot experience, though Nelsonian lenses offer an entirely different approach again and can provide some beautiful and unique images.
Whatever happens, understanding the principles of lighting for macro, magnification and its effect on distance to subject and depth of field are crucial for optimising image quality.
I hope that the wide range of tools presented in this article help to widen your repertoire of creating better close-up cinematography and photography
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