Reddit mentions of A Short Course in Digital Photography

Although you don't have a true macro lens you should be able to get some pretty close up shots based on what I can tell about the camera. I ran around for a long time with a Canon SX120 IS before upgrading to a DSLR and got some really nice closeups of bugs, plants, etc although nothing as close as your example. And the SX120 IS is a pretty low end camera. (Here's an image I shot with that camera)


Unfortunately you're battling with the properties of the lens itself. By zooming in you trade the ability to focus on close things for the ability to magnify the image and "crop out" the parts you don't want. But like I said, you should still be able to get similar shots without modifying your camera or purchasing add ons.

The main factors in determining depth of field are:

-Distance from subject (closer = shallower)

-Aperture [F-Stop] (lower = shallower)

-Focal length of the lens (Longer mm lenses tend to create images with shallower ranges of focus)


In order to get the really shallow depth of field in my water shot I opened my lens up all the way (Wide aperture, F2.8) and had it entirely zoomed out. In order to get the composition I just had to get within a few centimeters of the subject and click away.

As for learning about lenses, I think the best thing to do is to just go take a bunch of photos with your camera. Drop it into manual and change settings one at a time to see what they do. Once you've used your camera enough you'll just "feel" how the lens works and will be able to get the shots you want.

You could also try to find a book called "A Short Course in Digital Photography" by Barbara London and Jim Stone. It was required for my intro photography class and it goes over a lot of the basics. The edition I had was about 200 pages long and had plenty of demonstration images and diagrams to help you learn. If I recall it was pretty cheap too as far as textbooks go (although textbooks have mad price swings so it might not be cheap this time of year).

Edit: This is a different edition, but it probably has the same information and is way less expensive than the edition I got.

Edit2: This website has a simulation that lets you mess with camera settings to get the perfect shot. Took me a while to find it again.