So. I spend a fair amount of time trying to take photos of proffieboards. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
In general, I use a 50mm lens, plus some macro extension tubes to be able to get up close. Then I crank the aperture way down, set it to some low iso, like maybe 100-400, then put the camera on a tripod and expose it for as long as it needs to come out properly exposed. This makes for sharp, low-noise picture with a wide focus depth.
Lighting is a little bit all over the place, I usually try both with and without flash. I have some small halogen lights that I tend to use, but some of my best pictures have been in sunlight or from ambient light in the room.
I’ve also tried focus stacking, but so far I haven’t managed to get any good results by doing that.
Does anybody else do these sort of things? Is it worth investing in a macro lens?
Is there a trick to focus stacking I don’t about? Is there anything else I should try?
I usually did it with longer lenses (200mm) and stacking tubes. That allows me more space for lightning and reduces the deformations. But I just happen to have a very nice professional EF 70-200 f2.8 IS mk2.
@baldusi, interesting. I have longer lenses, but I don’t know if I’ve ever tried some of them with the tubes. My 100-400 lens is pretty big and heavy though.
Now that I think of it, I’ve always done it with bokeh, and the longer lenses might be diffraction limited at surprisingly low f numbers with modern sensors. But for me it was usually about getting the better lighting.
