How can I photograph individual snow crystals with affordable equipment?
Asked 11/19/2013
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Is it possible to photograph single snow crystals using consumer gear, or does it require specialized scientific equipment? I’m wondering whether a typical Nikon DX setup with a 100–150mm macro lens and a 10+ MP sensor is enough, or if much higher magnification is needed. What kind of setup is usually used, and what are the main limitations?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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You can't do it with the 100-150mm macro lens exactly. If you look at the images again you can see the fibres within threads that the snowflake is sat upon and that's some extreme magnification going on there well outside the parameters of a normal macro lens.
What the author of the images in the article has done is created a reverse mount setup. Normally a lens is used to focus a large scene into a small area (the film/sensor) and as the name suggests the lens is reversed using an adapter to makes the small scene big. This means you don't need a macro lens. Having a camera with a small sensor also helps as higher pixel density will increase magnification. The technique isn't without limitations, focusing is relatively limited and depth of field is exceptionally shallow and hard to control (if at all unless your lens, like most DX lenses, doesn't have an aperture ring) but you don't particularly need any special equipment.
Originally by user14028. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user14028
12y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes, it’s possible with affordable gear, but a standard 100–150mm macro lens alone usually won’t give enough magnification for the highly detailed snow-crystal images you’ve seen. Those photos are typically made with an extreme macro setup, often by reversing a lens with a reverse-mount adapter rather than using it normally.
A reversed lens turns a very small subject into a much larger image on the sensor, which gives far more magnification than a conventional macro lens. A small-sensor camera can also help because its higher pixel density makes tiny subjects fill more of the frame.
The tradeoffs are significant: focusing range is very limited, depth of field is extremely shallow, and getting sharp results is difficult. In practice, photographing snow crystals is possible, but it’s closer to extreme macro than ordinary macro photography.
So: consumer equipment can do it, but not usually with just a normal macro lens. You’ll likely need a reversed-lens setup and patience to work around focus and depth-of-field limits.
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