What's a macro lens?

[chris_todd]

I was reading some earlier posts in which Ghazanfar mentioned using a "macro lens" to take a closeup photograph. Please excuse my photography ignorance, but what is a macro lens?

[kerokero]

A macro lense is a specific lense used with cameras to take very up close and magnified photos of small things. Ghazanfar uses one on his plants because many of them are small, and the blooms he's taking pics of are actually rather tiny! Think of it as almost having a microscope on your camera (tho most don't zoom in *that* much)

[krisw]

This is also something that's mostly reserved for people with DSLR cameras (where the lenses are interchangeable). For point-and-shoot cameras, you just do the best you can, and you may have to blow it up/crop a little bit through software.

[maddog10]

A macro lens is designed to take life size (or larger) photos. They also usually have a much closer minimum focus distance than a standard lens.

You can also use a 'standard' lens on a bellows assembly (or reversed) to take macro photos, but you would be opening up a whole new can of worms.