FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Pierre Joubert]

Hi Tobias. Nice Mimetite, nice photos ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=25474#25474 )

I am curious to know what camera you are using and what source of light. If it is a secret, I will understand. Best regards.

[Tobi]

Danke, Andreas ;-)

Pierre, it is not a secret (my pictures are very humble, why should i make a secret of it?). I use daylight under a garret window (of course no direct sunlight) and an older Canon Digital IXUS 60, so really nothing special ...

[Pierre Joubert]

[Tobi]

Thank you very much, Pierre, i'm glad you like my photos. Indeed i improved, some of the pictures are really good (e.g. the recent closeups of the German mimetite and the Ojuela wulfenite). I'm proud of them, sure, but not all of my photos are that good. Sometimes i can't find a fitting background, or the pictures are fuzzy, or too dark or too bright or the colours are not captured well etc. And some specimens are simply not made for being photographed, they look boring or ugly though they may be really nice in person ...

But the more it is good to hear that people like the good shots :-)

Tobi

[Pierre Joubert]

[Jordi Fabre]

Hi there,

I separate your last posts and created with them this new thread in order to keep coherent the Collection of Tobias Martin thread.

[Pierre Joubert]

[Riccardo Modanesi]

Hi Tobi! Well, don't worry about the photos, what you have shown is very nice! I made them see even to some non-mineralogist people and they like them very much! Then, I know for one photo you succeed there are some five or ten you don't! It's always this way in our life, whatever the job we are doing! Take for instance a football game: how many attempts of shooting on target should a player or a team do before scoring a goal?Ask yourself! A 100% success is never EVER done in our life!
Greetings from Italy by Riccardo.

[Pierre Joubert]

I have come to the conclusion that, besides a good light source (a vast topic on it's own), you need a reasonably good camera with a good 80 - 100 mm lens to take photographs of smaller mineral specimens. If photographing in sunlight, a good filter is very important to reduce 'glare'. The aim is to take reasonably good photographs of minerals without having to spend your lifetime savings on photographic equipment. At present we are using two Kodak cameras, Easyshare Z710 and DX6490, and although they take fairly good photos, they are not very good at close ups of very small, 15mm and less, specimens. What camera and lens do you use together with a few short tips or (secrets) would be welcome :-) (please)

[Milind]

I use Canon IXUS 230 HS point & shoot camera. This gives best results for micromounts to thumbnails. It has macro of 1cm, which allows to get as close to 1 cm to the object. I take photographs in daylight.

[Pierre Joubert]

[Milind]

it is thumbnail ( 1.4 x 1 x 1 cm)

[Pierre Joubert]

I found this 'nugget' of information from a good article on macro photography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography
(link normalized by FMF)

Lighting
The problem of sufficiently and evenly lighting the subject can be difficult to overcome. Some cameras can focus on subjects so close that they touch the front of the lens. It is difficult to place a light between the camera and a subject that close, making extreme close-up photography impractical. A normal-focal-length macro lens (50 mm on a 35 mm camera) can focus so close that lighting remains difficult. To avoid this problem, many photographers use telephoto macro lenses, typically with focal lengths from about 100 to 200 mm. These are popular as they permit sufficient distance for lighting between the camera and the subject.

[Jordi Fabre]

Recommended reading: How to do better close up photographs of minerals?

[Pierre Joubert]