Close focus & the details
Near-macro on both lenses — minimum focus distance, magnification, and the technique thin focus demands.
- Compare the close-focus abilities of your two lenses
- Explain why depth of field becomes razor-thin up close
- Get sharp detail shots without a dedicated macro lens
Neither of your lenses is a true macro, but both get close enough for the details that make a story feel complete — the food, the flower, the texture, the small object. Doing it well is mostly about managing how little stays sharp when you move in.
What each lens can do
- The Tamron 17-70mm focuses to about 0.19 m at its wide end and reaches roughly 1:4.8 magnification — the higher of the two, and enough to fill the frame with a flower head or a plate of food.
- The Sony 10-20mm focuses even closer in absolute terms — around 0.13 m — but its ultra-wide angle means the subject stays small in the frame; its close focus is more about exaggerated wide perspective than filling the frame with a tiny thing.
For most detail shots, the Tamron at 70mm, up close is your near-macro tool. For a dramatic, immersive close-up with a sweeping background, the Sony up close is the creative choice.
Depth of field collapses up close
The catch with close focus is that depth of field shrinks to almost nothing. Focus distance is one of the three levers from Lesson 9, and at 0.2 m it dominates: even at f/8 you may have only millimetres of sharpness. Two consequences follow:
- Stop down more than feels necessary — f/8 to f/11 — to hold enough of the subject, watching for diffraction past f/11.
- Focus is unforgiving. A few millimetres of sway moves the sharp plane off your subject entirely.
Technique for the thin zone
- Steady the camera — a small tripod, a beanbag, or an elbow on the table. Handheld sway that is invisible at normal distances ruins a close-up.
- Focus precisely — magnify the view and place focus by hand, or tap exactly where it must be sharp; do not trust a wide AF area this close.
- Rock, don’t twist — with focus set, ease the whole camera a hair forward or back to land the plane, rather than refocusing.
- Watch your own light — this close, the camera and lens can shade the subject; work from the side of the light, not on top of it.
In the field
Photograph a small object — a coin, a leaf, a berry — with the Tamron at 70mm, as close as it will focus, at f/4 and then f/11. See how little is sharp wide open and how stopping down rescues it. Then steady the camera and nail focus on one exact edge. Precision, not gear, is what makes a detail shot.