Any hints and tips for macro photography? I promised my mom that I'd take some pictures of her Swarvorski collection for her to send a friend. I practiced on one of my little fish tonight and ohmy - I'd not even show anyone it was so horrid.

I know it's possible to do - any experts out there?

And thank you - in advance!

If you are using one of the recent Panasonic Lumix models here's afew tips to get you up and close:

1. Use a small tripod, even one of the cheapie table tripods. You need to get close and be VERY steady.

2. When shooting Macro, use the self timer feature. Set it for ether 2 or 10 seconds. Once you press the shutter, get your hands off the camera so you won't have any camera jitter.

3. Use iA mode - this will allow you to literally get the lens within an inch of the subject.

4. Shoot at the highest resolution. The photos will be large, but you can crop them, so the end result will be super close - larger than life.

5 Lighting is important, so use two or more lights positioned at different angles to minimize shaodow. Keep the lights at least 1-2 feet away to avoid burned out photos.

hi,

here's my 2 cents... instead of using the macro mode on your camera, try using using the telephoto end of your lens (max zoom)... use manual focusing & set to min focal length... than move your camera (preferably on a tripod) until you get a sharp photo... this way you could solved lack of lighting experienced by using macro mode... unless you buy the specialized macro flash... 8-))

hi rocquan,

share some sample of your photo so others could see the results... cheerio... 8-))

Great advice John, I use to do that when selling things on Ebay for my boss. It provides a background that is seamless and professional looking in product photography!