Are you patient, curious, enthusiastic, a lover of nature photography And of the small great things that he gives us? Then you are going to love macro photography. If you have not yet succumbed to his charms, I hope that after this article you end up at his feet 🙂
What is macro photography?
Basically it is the ability to obtain large images of small elements, be they animals or objects. It is said that for a photograph to be considered macro, the size ratio between the photographed and the image that is projected on the sensor must correspond to a ratio of 1 to 1; that is, they must have the same size in reality as on the sensor.
What material do I need?
There are numerous options to achieve macro photography and, like almost everything in photography, you can spend very little or spend a lot. That will always depend on your budget and what interests you in macro photography, since there are as many systems to achieve it as there are prices. Let’s see some:
macro lens
is the system most recommended since it is the simplest in addition to the one that provides the best results in general. They are specific for macro photography, and have different focal lengths: short (30mm to 50mm), long (60mm to 105mm) or telephoto macro lenses (150mm to 200mm). Typically, the higher the focal length, the further away you can be to photograph your subject (same as with a non-macro lens), which is very useful. The negative part is that the higher the focal length, the more price.
Inverter rings
A cheaper solution than macro objectives is based on rotate the target (I’m sure you’ve already tried it before 😉 ) which allows a close-up similar to what you get with a macro lens. The rings join the front of your lens with the body of your camera. The negative part is that you will lose control of the camera (focus, aperture, etc.) and the positive part is that you will be able to get very good macro images for very little money. In this case, less focal; more increase.
close-up lenses
They are a cheap option to get started in macro photography. They are placed like a filter on the lens of your camera, and serve to magnify the image (like a magnifying glass). The negative part is that they are usually of low quality, creating aberrations and distortions in the image. The positive part is that they will allow you to check if what you feel towards macro photography is something temporary (so it is not worth spending anything else) or if it is really your thing. In that case, do not hesitate, start saving for a good macro lens.
extension tubes
Extension tubes are another very inexpensive system for macro imaging. They are screwed directly between the camera body and the lens, and their function is to increase the focal length of our lens, allowing us to get closer. There are two types: some maintain a connection with the camera and others do not, so they force you to work completely in manual (focus, exposure, etc.). Obviously, the former are more expensive than the latter.
Tripod
Unless you want to limit the taking of your macrophotographs to the controlled environments of about four walls, the ideal would be to have or buy a tripod that has the following characteristics:
- Robust and heavy: Yes, terrible when you have become a fan of outdoor macro photography, but very necessary, since the sturdiness of a tripod makes it less vulnerable to the imperceptible movements of the wind or other factors.
- With removable central column: It will allow you to take images at ground level.
- Legs that allow to vary the angle individually: It will be very useful to go outside, since the land you will find is almost never perfectly flat. On the contrary, most of the time you will be moving between rocks or brush, so this “detail” will be very useful.
- Rack joint: It allows you to adjust the position to the millimeter (which in macro can mean the difference between photo and non-photo).
Don’t have any of the above? Well, you won’t have it as easy as the lucky one who has that ideal tripod 😉 but you will surely overcome any adversity with a little more effort.
Remote Switch
Macro photography is as delicate as those flower petals or those ants that you like to photograph so much. the lightest movement or vibration it can ruin your image, so it is almost essential that you get a remote shutter release. Not everything is pressing the shutter, you have many other ways to shoot a photo and much less damaging to your image 😉
spray bottle
Yes, don’t make that surprised face, do you know how beautiful a few drops of dew can be on a leaf in macro version? 😉 And, what easier way to find dew in the place you want than to take a spray bottle with water to create beautiful drops of water where you prefer?
Camera settings
The most important thing in macro photography is to get a good approach of our protagonist. It is also the most difficult, because a small millimeter error that would go unnoticed in any other photographic discipline, in this case would mean the complete loss of focus of our center of interest.
live view
Many cameras have this option. It is widely used in landscape and macro photography as it holds the mirror open to prevent movement which is caused during taking an image when the mirror is raised. In addition, it allows us to check the focus through the screen “live and direct” to be able to correct it very precisely. The approach we will do it as manual in the area that we want to highlight.
Exposition
As in any image, the exposure is important and the choice of one type or another will be closely linked to the result you want to obtain. It doesn’t hurt to get one reflector if you plan to go for a walk looking for wonderful macro images. The vast majority of times you won’t be able to (or shouldn’t) move to your center of interest, so a reflector will help eliminate shadows or redirect light.
Manual mode
Macro photography is almost predestined to work in manual. So you can choose the speed and the diaphragm that interests you in each image.
ISO
Since you have a great tripod to keep your camera from moving in the slightest, ideally you should work low ISO To keep the quality of your image to the fullest. However, it is not only your camera that can move, outdoors you will have wind or simply your protagonist will move by his own foot. Make sure you shoot one enough speed to prevent your image from blurring. If you don’t have enough light, it’s best to “sacrifice” some image quality and raise the ISO before your image blurs.
What to photograph and how?
Background
You can resign yourself to whatever there is, you can do tricks and change the point of view to get what you want, or simply help yourself with some colored cardboard. Although they are images with a shallow depth of field, the background is still as important as in any image, and you must watch it with the same attention.
Composition
Because the focus in macro photography is so exact, images are often based on a single center of interest, often with only one area of the center standing out, as it is often difficult to keep the entire subject in focus. Imagine if you wanted to include a little friend in the scene 😉 Almost impossible. That is why the images are simple (within their complexity) competitively speaking. There are few distracting elements, so the importance of the composition takes on, if possible, greater importance.
The “rules” are the same as those we use in any image, but in this case the ones that, in my opinion, you should consider the most are:
Theme
Everything, absolutely everything, is likely to end up being one of your wonderful and incredible macro photographs, although it is true that there are some subjects that lend themselves more and better to being photographed in this photographic style:
- Flora
- Fauna (small, you understand 😉 )
- Recognizable everyday objects (coins, screws, shoelaces…)
- drops of water (dew)
Do you recognize me?
In my opinion, the wonderful thing about macro photography is being able to see what we are not able to do with the naked eye. It is revealing the mystery of small things, it is taking something small and giving it a giant scale, it is taking the unnoticed and making it important. And precisely for this reason, I believe that one of the qualities that a macro image must have is that what is in it be recognized.
practice at home
Don’t limit yourself to the wonderful excursions to the meadows to look for bugs and flowers. Macro photography requires (like all) practice and at home you have many candidate reasons to be a great image. You can also take your shots calmly, without wind, without shadows, without anything that interferes between you and your wonderful photo. The more you practice, the easier it will be for you to go out and do outdoor macros and the better results you will have 🙂 .
compact cameras
To finish, just tell you that no, that compact cameras DO NOT offer a “real” macro even if they have the macro symbol (flower) among their different settings. They do not allow you to take macro images but they do allow you to imagine how and how infinitely fantastic the world of “real” macro is 😉
I usually think and say that photographers (whether amateurs or professionals) have the ability to see what others do not see. The ability to find stories, to create them, to capture them. This is even more true in macro photography. This type of photography allows us to raise objects and animals, situations, textures, hairy legs and large dark eyes, humming elements and drops that enclose a world to the height of our gaze. It allows us to capture a world as alive as it is unknown, a world that would not exist were it not for those wonderful images worthy of Alice in Wonderland 😉 So, do you dare? You have already seen that there are many ways to start in photography and not all of them (far from it) are expensive, so I encourage you to try it because I can assure you that you are going to go crazy. Or crazy. 🙂
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