Evaluating A Macro Photography Camera
My company, AMF, purchased a general-purpose digital camera five years ago, the Sony Mavica, model MVC-FD83. The digital capability and floppy disc drive media proved very practical for general documentation purposes. The floppy discs made it convenient for any employee to work with the images. After about 20,000+ images the floppy drive wore out and a new camera was needed. Meanwhile I had personally purchased a Nikon Coolpix 995 camera with a 3.3 Megapixel resolution (a big improvement over the Sony Mavica 0.9 megapixel resolution) and close focus (2 cm) capability. This became a consideration for an AMF camera and we ordered one on eBay, which was lost by the USPS – it was insured.
Earlier in 2005 I purchased a Sony T1 with a Magnify mode that featured a very close focus (1 cm) and 5-megapixel resolution. This camera has provided many of the images used on posters, reports, fundraiser book, procedures, and power point presentations, especially for the BPB project. The ability to produce a large image of a very small object has proved very useful for our engineering and publicity projects.
The Sony T1 works especially well as a general documentation camera for me because I always have it with me, I have extra memory cards, 1 GB total for about 500 images, and 2 extra batteries for any photo shoot requirements. All of this fits in my shirt pocket and is with me 24/7. The T1 has two serious limitations. The first is sharpness with magnification, and the second is working distance for lighting. An example of an image the T1 is capable of is shown in figure 1 at the right. The BPB uses many small parts and to be able to photograph them without the flatness of a microscope image is very useful for documents, Power Point Presentations, publicity, and posters. Other BPB parts are even smaller and a good macro photography camera with good lighting could produce adequate images.
The close focus of the Sony T1 provides reasonable magnification for small objects, such as the BPB stimulation capacitor, but the small working distance makes lighting the subject very difficult. How do you front light a subject within a space of 1 cm (394 mils) between the lens and the subject? The sharpness issue involves both the sharpness of the lens system and the depth of field. The advantage of a macro photograph over an image as seen by a microscope is the increased depth of field. The tools, parts and BION® microstimulator products themselves fall into the range of subject size that is best photographed by what is usually called macro photography.
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