Shooting Micro Elements

[LOKOMAN]

Hi, I'm about to shoot tiny stuff, like ants, grains of sand, flowers.

Any suggestion how to make everything look sharp, in focus? Imagine I have to shoot ants crawling through the garden. And everything's gotta look gigantic and in focus. Like a Bug's life, but real. And if it's not too much to ask. I'm looking for a long depth of field. So far when I use my HV20 my depth of field is tiny.

Any idea what kind of lenses or adaptors might help my HV20?

Any info will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[destruct007]

not sure if that exists, long dof AND shooting tiny/micro. I think of a microscope and how short their dof is. Also if you find a lens that will do that or even anywhere close, post it here I'd love to see it.

I heard when shooting small is you'll need a lot more light. Having a small apature means you get things in focus, to have a small appature you need lots of light, and shooting small will mean you don't have that.

[LOKOMAN]

Makes a lot of sense. Thanks for your input. Maybe some vendor will see this post and invent something we can use. Or if somebody knows about a new lens; please post the info here.

Thanks.

[voodeux]

As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the field of view, the shallower the depth of focus. Its an optics thing and involves physics above my pay grade. You see this often with both wildlife footage shot on mega-long zoom lenses, and macro-photography. Short of having a tilt-shift lens (or bellows) like on a 4x5 camera, you're stuck with the optics you have on the HV20. Since you can't shut your aperature to something like f22, it really won't be possible to have a large depth of field with a macro shot.

I don't use the 35mm adaptors, but it might be possible to rig a bellows unit onto them and get some better control...but expect a steep learning curve.