Macro Photography

Macroscopy competes with the digital microscope where a small camera tube can be attached directly to a computer, usually via USB port. Macroscopy also competes with photomicroscopy, and it is much less expensive to achieve high quality images. However, high magnification images are more difficult using macroscopy.
The method is especially useful in forensic work, where small details at crime or accident scenes may often be very significant towards solving the crime. Trace evidence such as fingerprints and skid marks are especially important, and easily recorded using macroscopy. Fracture surfaces from broken products are very revealing using fractography, especially when photographed using glancing light to highlight surface details.