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Comment by drexlspivey | Hacker News Reader

Pretty crazy that you can get this kind of shots with a mobile tbh. Until very recently you would require a DSLR with a bulky specialized lens. For reference this is what a typical macro lens looks like https://images.app.goo.gl/nf5keSiugxyb2pmA6

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The issue is the working distance.

You'll note that the photographer there is shooing with a lens that has a fairly long barrel. For the Nikkor 105mm macro lens - https://coinimaging.com/nikon_105vr.html

At 1:1, there's 15.3 cm between the front of the lens and the subject.

But if you're shooting with a rather short lens (e.g. those in the camera of a phone) then the working distance is very close.

This becomes important important when photographing insects (you'll note there are no photos of insects in that collection)

Some other lenses and their working distances - https://www.kielia.de/photography/calculator/working-distanc...

The Olympus 30mm shooting as a macro lens has a working distance of 16mm (quite different than the 153mm of the Nikkor 105mm macro lens).

The "getting close" also impacts the "how do you light it" and keeping the subject out of the shadow of the camera.

I would say most really good insect macro images are done with dead insects anyways, as they need to be stacked to get a decent depth of field.

The “how to light it” is probably a bigger point. Even with a ~100mm lens, dealing with the lens’ shadow can be annoying.

why wouldn't a future phone camera macro lens have a ring light?

That would light it, but you don’t necessarily want every image to have “flat” lighting. It’s ok for portraits and for documenting things, but usually directional light is more interesting.

The practical working distance is why I like the four-thirds system for macro. With a 50mm 1:2 macro lens on a micro43 body you can work at a distance of 10-25cm from the lens front, so you can sneak up on bugs, and on this format you can get a useful depth of field with more than a few atoms in focus like you'd get on a larger format.

> This becomes important important when photographing insects (you'll note there are no photos of insects in that collection)

I've gotten some interesting insect shots using Nikon 70-300 f/4.5-5.6G ED from a short distance.

I think people sometimes get too caught up with the gear instead of trying out what they have.

A $20 extension tube or reversing ring will turn even any plain 50mm prime into a fine macro lens. There really isn’t an upper limit on lens hugeness or cost for people chasing that last 1% of performance.

I bought a cheap DSLR extension tube and a $15 ring light on eBay to do macro photography of electronic components. They work much better than I expected for the price. I'm sure an expensive macro lens would be better but this setup works fine for me.

My take on macro lenses is that they are sort of bulky lenses designed with the extension tube built in, so you can go from infinity to 1:1 or similar.

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