Toturial : Macro Photography

Tutorial: Macro Photography

The tutorial includes:

Introduction
Necessary equipment or ‘Who needs a camera’?
Location Location Location
Close up Lens
Extension tubes
Depth of field!!!
Light
Focus
Sweat and tears
Bugs are from Venus, photographers from Mars
COCKROACH!!!!
Summary

1. Introduction

I had a dream of visiting a far away planet… seeing aliens… viewing scenes that were never seen before. I have a secret to tell you (but don’t tell anyone) – I found a way to do it. OK, ok, don't threat to beat it out of me, I’ll tell you. A whole world, which we never visited, exists under our nose (literally). This world contains strange creatures and mysterious landscapes.

Macro photography techniques apply to any small object, but in this tutorial I’ll run through the general techniques and then focus and insect photography.

2. Necessary equipment or ‘Who needs a camera’?

Who needs a camera? You, of course (What are these silly questions?). All you need is a camera with the best Macro capabilities you can get. If you're using a compact camera, you can also add, either to the lens or via an adaptor, close-up lenses. If you have a SLR camera you can use Macro Capable lens or add extension tubes between the body of the camera and the lens. Because of the need to close the aperture, you might need an external flash can provide a significant advantage by increasing the amount of light.

3. Where and what?

Macro photography can be done anywhere and starring any subject. You can go down stairs to your garden, but I recommend going to the fields and to nature, because the more interesting bugs could be found there. Flies can be found on almost any bush and they make extremely interesting subjects. If you’re into shooting regular objects in doors you can start with a burning candle, different types of food and whatever else you can think of (Don’t make a mess in the kitchen though).

4. Close up lens

A lens mounted on the camera’s lens is sometimes called a close-up lens or diopter.

Diopter is a term that some of you who wear glasses may be familiar with. The lenses’ purpose is to enable the camera to reach a focus closer to the lens itself. The Diopter lenses are measured in numbers +1 +2 and so on. Each number represents how close the focus can be to the lens, and the greater the number the closer the focus will be. These lenses are relatively non-expensive for a set of 3 lenses (+1 +2 and +4). You can stack close up lenses one on top of the other and by that increase the Diopter, for example a +2 lens on top of a +4 lens will equal a +6 diopter. The problem is the more lenses you stack the lower the quality becomes. I use a +10 diopter lens from B+W that provides sufficient quality. Read the Filters article for further information.

5. Extension tubes

Extension tubes are simple rings without any optical qualities that serve a single purpose – distancing the lens from the camera. How does it help us? By distancing the lens from the sensor we increase the projection area of the lens on the focal plane, just like when you increase the distance of a projector from a screen and the image gets larger. Extension tubes are measures in millimeters of focal length. When the focal length of the tubes is equal to the focal length of the lens we get a 1:1 augmentation, which increases accordingly as the ratio grows. A 50 mm lens will enable focus from closer distance than a 200 mm lens. What’s the disadvantage? (and there is always one) By increasing the distance of the lens and increasing the projection area, the amount of light hitting the sensor is smaller (more diffused) and so the exposure parameters (aperture/shutter/ISO) need to be adjusted to reach the same exposure that you would normally achieve without the extension tubes.

6. Depth of field!!!

Why the exclamation marks? When you’ll start shooting macro you’ll understand. The DOF gets shallower as the object gets closer, and at a few centimeters distance it gets so critical, that it might turn a blessing into a curse. In some cases the DOF might be a millimeters deep. So… What can we do to handle this challenge? We close the aperture to a minimum and increase the DOF as much as we can and we could even shoot several photos at different focus points and combine them in photoshop afterwards. Read the Depth of Field Article for further knowledge.

7. Lighting

Lighting is a difficult issue when it comes to macro photography: We are close to the subject and cast a shadow on it, we closed the aperture to increase the DOF, we may have mounted some extension tubes to increase the Macro quality… in short, we probably don’t have enough light. Our goal is to shoot with as much zoom as we can and yet not cast the lens’ shadow in the subject. This is the case to resort to a very loved and familiar light source – the Flash. An external flash is recommended, and taking it off the camera and holding it in your hand or on an L bracket (attached to the camera and designed to hold the flash) is highly recommended. You might want to add a diffuser to soften the hard light quality of the flash. I recommend reading the Flash Article I wrote for further reading

8. Focus

Focus is a very frustrating issue due to the shallow DOF mentioned in section 6. When using an automatic focus you can’t know immediately if the focus was on the front leg, the hind leg, or even off the insect entirely. To shoot effectively you have to manually set the focus to the nearest point, and advance or retreat the camera gently to set the focus on your target.

9. Sweat

It will take lots and lots of practice and you’ll find yourself wondering about the nasty bug’s mother and her profession until you achieve the photo you wanted to get. Be patient and work hard to get the exact photo you set out to get. Don’t compromise.

10. Bugs are from Venus and Men are from Mars…

Insects have a fear of intimacy, maybe because they think you want to squash them (and they’re probably right). So how can we get close enough to take our shot? The trick is to approach slowly and gently, not to cast your shadow on the insect and keep a low profile. If the bug flies, it flies… They will often return to the same leaf/location. From my experience there are patient bugs and nervous bugs. I tried shooting butterflies without any success until I stumbled upon a fearless butterfly, which I shot from every possible angle, a real fashion book.

11. COCKROACH!!

This is the time to make it absolutely clear that Macro photography is not for people with bug phobia. The object is to present the insect in a flattering light to make the photo interesting and good.

12. Summary

To Summarize, Macro photography is a fascinating field that reveals a whole other world. The possibilities are nearly endless and the camera is the means to tap into that hidden world.

As you can see this field is endless and there is always room for improvement.

Thank you, and good luck to everyone.

Yours truly,

Roie Galitz

www.galitz.co.il/en

For more photography articles – Photography Basics, composition, Depth of field, Filters, Flash Photography, infrared photography, Sunset photography, Blue Channel, Panning