Thanks! iPhone 14. I do have a clip on macro lens for it, but this is just the phone’s lens. I’ve been looking around at maybe buying a second hand dedicated camera for macro shots, but it’s hard to justify several thousand dollars when the phone is almost as good.
For macro, it really seems like smaller sensors are the way to go. I currently have a FF camera and a M43 camera. M43 lenses tend to be able to focus a lot closer and will have more depth of field for a given focal length. It doesn’t surprise me that a phone could nail these shots, but my pixel 3a can’t focus very close.
Good to know! I never really understood the point of M43s. Is there one in particular you recommend? (Hopefully at least two years old, for budget reasons…). I’m very impressed with the iPhone macro, and Sandmark iPhone lenses but it is a bit frustrating that I can’t get a whole insect in focus at the same time- butt in focus, hind/mid legs out of focus.
M43, when it was introduced in 2008, was one of the earlier mirrorless mounts. It offered significant size/weight savings over its contemporary DSLR counterparts due to a combination of being mirrorless (much shorter distance between the lens flange and the actual sensor) and the fact that a physically smaller sensor doesn’t need such a large image circle. Mirrorless cameras have largely caught up in terms of flange distance, but the smaller sensor size means that for a given equivalent focal length and non-equivalent f-stop a M43 lens will be quite a bit smaller and lighter than a lens for another format. This does start to go out the window when you consider that a M43 sensor is about 1 2/3 stops behind a FF sensor in terms of noise until you get to longer focal lengths and M43 becomes king again. There’s a reason why M43 is so popular among birders.
If you’re interested in picking up a camera for macro photography, or another photography topic in general, I suggest heading over to !photography and/or !photography. (Or the DPReview forums). Ultimately, camera recommendations come down to budget and what you will be taking photos of since that will guide AF/low light/macro/reach/etc needs.
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