The macro capabilities of the TG cameras are regarded as one of their strongest features. In this blog I’m going to take a look at the settings on the various camera models that give you the ability to get closest to those tiny critters.
Equivalent Focal Length
When it comes to taking pictures of small stuff two things play a part in how large your subject will look in the picture. One is the equivalent focal length of your lens and the other is how close you actually are. Calculating the equivalent focal length of a camera lens involves multiplying its actual focal length by the crop factor of its sensor. The number you get is the focal length of a full frame camera lens that yours equates to. I’m not going to go further into this as the sums have already done for you when it comes to the TG’s. Since the TG-1 all the cameras have had the same range of 25mm to 100mm focal length. This is why the zoom is referred to as x4 because it makes your subject appear four times closer at its longest setting compared to the shortest.
Focusing Distance
How close you can get the camera to your subject and still get a sharp picture is dependent on the minimum focusing distance of its lens. The shorter the distance the larger your subject will appear in the picture. One of the best features of the TG’s are that unlike many cameras when you zoom the lens (increase the focal length) the minimum focusing distance doesn’t increase. That means you can use the full power of the lens even at short distances.
What that minimum focusing distance is depends on the model of TG you have, the mode you are in and in some cases another setting which I’ll explain further on.
All the TG’s since the TG-1 have offered at least one setting where they would focus incredibly close at only 1cm distance. I’m not going to go into detail about the modes on the early cameras because there aren’t many still in use and if you have one you’ve had plenty of time to work out the settings.
Close up of a common sea urchin taken using a TG-6. While this was taken from closer than 10cm I certainly wasn’t as close as the camera would focus as I didn’t want to get spiked by the urchin.
TG-4 and TG-5
The TG-4 and TG-5 normally focus as close as 10cm from the lens no matter what focal length you are zoomed to. That’s in most of the camera modes including the Underwater Macro setting. To focus closer you need to put the camera in Microscope mode where it will focus as close as 1cm from the lens. There are four options to choose from in Microscope Mode. Microscope Setting gives you the same level of control of exposure etc as P mode but with closer focusing. Focus Stacking will take a series of pictures with different focus points and puts them together as a single image with more depth of field than one picture would have. Focus Bracketing takes a series of shots as with Focus Stacking but doesn’t put them together so you can assemble later using software. Microscope Control is basically a digital teleconverter that crops the picture to make your subject appear larger, I’d recommend cropping your image with software rather than using this.
You put the camera in microscope mode by rotating the mode dial so the picture of the microscope is level with the white mark. You can then scroll across to choose the setting. If you want to change from one microscope mode setting while shooting just press left on the direction pad and the options will come up.
Putting the camera into Microscope mode doesn’t just reduce the minimum focusing distance allowing you to get closer. In other modes the camera will focus out to infinity, meaning as long as the camera can see something it can in theory focus on it. In Microscope mode the maximum focusing distance becomes only 30cm. If you see something further away than that and you want to get a picture of it you’ll either have to get closer or change modes.
This shot of a lizardfish in the Red Sea was taken using a TG-5 in Microscope mode using the camera’s built-in flash.
One slight oddity which I presume is something to do with how the camera achieves that close focusing is that the camera lens won’t go to its widest when in Microscope but instead stops just short. This is shown on the screen as 1.2x when the widest would be 1x. That’s why when you change to Microscope mode you’ll see and hear the camera zoom in slightly if you had it zoomed out.
TG-6 and TG-7
With the release of the TG-6 Olympus added more close focusing capability. Instead of just being tied to using the Microscope mode there’s also an Underwater Microscope option in the range of Underwater presets. This functions the same as Microscope mode but in theory the camera will choose exposure settings to suit underwater better than the Microscope mode.
The bigger change from the TG-5 was the addition of Super Macro Focus settings. These are available in both Program (P) and Aperture Priority (A) modes and give you the same 1cm to 30cm focusing range as you get in the Microscope modes but in the case of A mode you gain more control over the exposure of your image. As well as an Auto Super Macro Focusing setting there’s also a manual one but I find the manual focus on the TG clunky to use.
To set your TG6 or TG7 to Super Macro Focusing press the OK button while the camera is A or P mode and then scroll across to the tulip symbol with AFS. The default on the camera is normal Auto Focus as chown in this picture.
Something to be aware of if you are using Super Macro Focusing is that you still need the lens zoomed to 1.2X or more otherwise the focusing range is the normal 10cm to infinity. Unlike in the microscope modes the camera doesn’t zoom the lens to that automatically, you have to remember to do it yourself.
If you have a TG earlier than a 6 and want to have shorter focusing distances underwater in aperture priority mode you can achieve that by using macro wet lenses but that will add cost.
Being able to control the aperture settings is a fairly substantial plus for me when shooting very close up. The dark background in this picture was achieved by setting the aperture to its highest f number with the zoom at its longest to get the equivalent of f/18.
Drawbacks
Very close focusing does have a number of issues. Being very close and your subject being reproduced at such large scale means that even tiny movements show in your pictures especially if you are using natural light. The depth of field is very shallow so you may struggle to get the part of your subject in focus that you want. There’s a risk, especially with underwater photography that you’ll get too close and damage your subject, its surroundings and the camera housing or lens. Because of that I recommend you make sure your buoyancy control is very good before trying to take shots that close underwater. For land photography a tripod is really helpful when taking macro shots especially when focus stacking or bracketing and when using natural light.
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