macro flower (1 Viewer)

Does anybody know what the difference is between the macro focus mode and the auto-focus mode? And what does the yellow flower mean?
All the CP4500 manual says is to use macro and the yellow flower for close-up shots. I'm trying to decide which settings to use for digiscoping, and it is difficult to decide without knowing more about the camera.

Thanks,
Matt

Matt,

The best thing to do is visit Andy's web site

It gives you info on the CP4500 settings and has some reasonable pictures on there as well I guess you've already seen the 'sticky' at the top of this forum?

Hope that helps.

Rich.

I've looked at Andy's site. He suggests using the Macro mode, but doesn't say what it is!

MattMatt said:

I've looked at Andy's site. He suggests using the Macro mode, but doesn't say what it is!

Click to expand...

The yellow flower is an indication that your camera zoom is within a range that provides the maximum amount of macro capability. It is an autofocus mode, but is not the only autofocus mode. It is desirable for at least two reasons.

1) It gives the camera the greatest chance of achieving auto focus without fiddling with scope focus since the camera can focus from a few inches to infinity when the yellow flower is showing.

2) The yellow flower turns white as you zoom out past around 3x. This acts as a reminder not to overmagnify which is the cause of many a soft digiscoped shot.

Jay Turberville said:

The yellow flower is an indication that your camera zoom is within a range that provides the maximum amount of macro capability. It is an autofocus mode, but is not the only autofocus mode. It is desirable for at least two reasons.

1) It gives the camera the greatest chance of achieving auto focus without fiddling with scope focus since the camera can focus from a few inches to infinity when the yellow flower is showing.

2) The yellow flower turns white as you zoom out past around 3x. This acts as a reminder not to overmagnify which is the cause of many a soft digiscoped shot.

Click to expand...

Hi Jay,
Thanks for the response. I agree with what you are saying, but it begs the question. I would like to know what the technical difference is between the different focus modes. I have not been able to find this information on the web, and it seems that all the digiscopers choose their settings by trial and error.

What is "macro capability"? I don't know too much about cameras, but it seems to me that either something is in focus or it is not. Why would the camera have a setting that does not focus as well as it can? What does it do differently in macro and normal mode?
--Matt

I'm not 100% familiar with this camera but, generally speaking, the macro modes and normal modes on many cameras are just 'focus-limiter' modes.

When you focus on something close to the camera the lens has to move more to achieve sharp focus than with a distant object so a camera that has a very close minimum-focus distance might do a lot of 'hunting' when in 'full' autofocus mode. Choosing a 'macro-focus mode' with an object that is close to you thus cuts down the time taken to achieve correct focus as there is less range for the camera to 'hunt' through.

If a camera gives the best performance for digiscoping by using a very close focus distance then choosing the macro focussing mode helps to cut down on the delay between pressing the shutter button and the shutter actually firing. This, indeed, does seem to be the case with the CP4500.

Where a flower symbol is amongst the various programmed exposure modes then this may be somewhat different. The 'depth of field' (i.e. that part of the image in sharp focus) is much more limited at close range than distant settings and, as choosing a small aperture increases depth of field, this particular program-mode may very well choose a small aperture for you automatically - this is not necessarily ideal for digiscoping purposes.

Again, these are general comments so if anyone's not sure on their own camera's fuctions then checking through the instruction book should clear things up. There's always a 'Specifications' page somewhere and if the flower symbol or 'Macro' heading is a programmed-exposure mode then you'll find it under the Exposure Modes heading.

If it's a 'focussing-mode' then, that's where you'll find it - probably with the quoted focussing ranges as well. For instance it may well say something like: 'Normal Mode':- 10cms - infinity, 'Macro Mode':- 10cms - 40cms (or similar).

MattMatt said:

Hi Jay,
I would like to know what the technical difference is between the different focus modes. I have not been able to find this information on the web, and it seems that all the digiscopers choose their settings by trial and error.

What is "macro capability"? I don't know too much about cameras, but it seems to me that either something is in focus or it is not. Why would the camera have a setting that does not focus as well as it can? What does it do differently in macro and normal mode?
--Matt

Click to expand...

Technically, macro photography is imaging where the image on the film (or CCD) is the same size as the subject or up to 10 times the size of the subject. Higher magnifications are micro photography and lower magnifications would be close-up or normal photography.
But the term is generally used in marketing to mean close-up photography. The CP4500 probably comes very close to achieving a true macro mode, which is quite an achievement considering the CCD is only about 9mm across the diagonal.

I suppose that Adey has pretty much got it right about why there are different focusing modes. By limiting the focus "search" range, the camera can find focus more quickly if its mode matches the subject distance.

I'm pretty sure that the macro setting gives the largest range and hence the longest focus times. This may sound counterproductive, but I suspect that it actually is a benefit. If the camera cannot find focus, then you must refocus the scope a tad. Then you can retry the camera focus. This is surely slower than letting the camera find the focus. Though I suppose that if you were in a fairly controlled situation - like camped out in a hide and observing a specific nest - that not using macro could have an advantage in finding focus more quickly. But in practice, once you've prefocused, minor focus shifts tend to be found pretty quickly.

In the end, I suspect the real advantage to macro and the yellow flower is that keeping it in the "yellow flower" range means you don't use too much camera zoom.

Yes, trial and error is the way of digiscoping. Scopes and eyepieces were not designed with digiscoping in mind. So we must do a lot of the R & D. But many have gone before us and blazed the trail, so there are some pretty tried and true techniques and you don't have to start entirely from scratch - unless you want to. And its not all trial and error. The collective experience and some technical understanding can help us to narrow down those things that are more likely to yield good results. The general advise to see the "yellow flower" is one of those bits of tried and true wisdom. Its not necessary to be in this range, but being there improves your odds of getting good results by narrowing down some of the variables.

Hi

I am using an Olympus C5050 which also has a macro auto focussing mode specified to be used in the range 20-80 cm (but do go to infinity if nessecary). It is slower than the ordinary AF (like the CP4500 if I understand it correctly) but the macro AF finds the focus much more often when digiscoping. I noted that if I focus the scope when looking through the eyepiece, the camera then finds focus at about 20-80 cm (depending on which eyepiece I use) when digiscoping. So, at least with my setup, it makes sense that using the macro AF should be optimal.

The slowness of macro AF, I think may also be because the limited DOF at close-ups which forces the camera to search for focus in smaller increments.

My 2 pixels,

Jens