Macro photography is highly rewarding,but it's not an easy genre. Now, I'm sure that you could make that same argument for any type of photography - but at the moment, I'm not. I'm only talking about macro. This is a type of photography where you go out in hot,humid conditions specifically in search of bugs. Or in search of flowers, or lizards, or whatever it is you photograph. And, once you've found them, you need to focus so precisely that your one- millimeter depth of field is perfectly on your subject's eye, or is at the perfect spot on a flower petal. You might not even have the width of a hair for your margin of error. And, on top of that,you're magnifying your subject so much that you magnify camera shake as well. So,clearly, picking the right camera settings is not easy. I will share you my experience about macro photography tips for beginners. And I'll explain what all of these different considerations are in a minute, but first let's start with some basic terminology.
Macro Photography Tips for Beginners
 |
| #Macro Photography tips |
Key Terminology and Macro Lenses
There's really two terms that I think anyone should know for macro photography, and those are working distance and magnification.
- Working Distance
We'll start with the easy one, which is working distance. The subject that's in focus is about this far away from the lens. Now, the working distance is the physical distance between the front of the lens and the subject. Now if you've got a longer macro lens, something like a 200mm, then you can stand farther from your subject while keeping it the same size in your photo. This means that you've got a bigger working distance. However, keep in mind that working distance also depends on the actual length of the lens that you're using - not focal length, but the lens's physical construction. The easiest example is if you put a lens hood on this lens. You obviously haven't changed the focal length, but you did reduce your working distance. So, for macro photography, you'll almost always want a large working distance. It's why I recommend a 100mm macro lens or longer to most photographers. Otherwise, you just get too close to your subject, and you might scare it away or even just block the light.
- Magnification
All right, term number two is magnification. And this has to do with how big your subject is on your camera sensor versus how big the subject is in the real world. And the simplest case is when you're at one-to-one magnification. This just means that the subject's size on your camera sensor is equal to its size in the real world. So here is a roughly accurate full frame sensor, 36millimeters across. If I lay this 30 millimeter ring on top of the camera sensor, you can see that it's almost covering it. And imagine taking a photo right now. The ring will fill almost the entire frame. Now, I did this, and here's what it looked like. And it's pretty magnified. If I focused instead at one-to-two magnification, that ring wouldn't take up nearly as much space. And so on. I could do one-to- four magnification, and then one-to-ten magnification. And now it's pretty clear that we're not even doing macro photography at all. Also, I've only been using a full frame sensor at this point, but it doesn't actually matter what sensor size you use. Say that I've got a larger sensor, like medium format. In this case, one to one magnification still means that the ring is the same size in the real world as its projection on the camera sensor, even though it takes up a smaller percentage of the frame. Now, when you're picking a macro lens, I strongly recommend getting something with at least one-to-one magnification. You'll see some lenses that claim to be macro even though they're only one-to-two magnification, or maybe even less. On the flip side, some lenses are more than one-to-one magnification. They might be two - to -one or even more. Now, this means that the subject is twice as big on your sensor as it is in the real world. And these are more specialized lenses, but depending on the subjects that you shoot,they might be very useful. So, you understand the basic terminology. You know which type of macro lenses I recommend. Now let's talk about two of the biggest challenges in macro photography, and those are getting enough light and getting enough depth of field.
 | |
|
Light and Depth of Field
Going into macro photography, it's important to know that higher magnification decreases your depth of field. There's no way around it. If you're at one-to-one, only a small part of your subject will be completely sharp, and the rest will be out of focus. So, what do you do about it? Well, the simplest answer is don't use super high magnifications - but that's also a really bad answer. There's tons of amazing subjects that are so small that you need to shoot at one-to-one magnification in order to capture them properly. But there is still a bit of truth in that statement. If you're just starting out in macro photography, it will be easier if you work with slightly larger subjects - something like dragonflies or flowers. You can actually photograph them in much the same way that you would shoot are gular, non -macro photo. Now, you might still have some depth of field issues,but they won't be nearly as bad. But what about when you *do* want to shoot at one-to-one? Well, in that case, my recommendation is to use a really narrow aperture. I tend to shoot my macro photos at f/16 or f/22. And that basically solves the depth of field problem, but it creates some other problems. Most importantly, you cut down on a tremendous amount of light at these apertures. Now,add that to the fact that you're already very close to your subject, so you're blocking a lot of natural light. And chances are you're shooting at fast shutter speeds to minimize camera shake, which darkens your photos even more!
 | |
|
How do you get bright enough photos
So,to get bright enough photos, there are a few solutions.
Option one is just to use a wide aperture instead of a narrow one, and then deal with the fact that your depth of field will be almost invisible. This can actually work really well if your goal is a photo that's mostly out- of -focus blur. For example, I took this photo focused at one-to-one with my lens's widest aperture, and I like how it looks. But that's clearly not a workable approach most of the time, because you'll often want more detail than this on your subject.
Another option, then, is to shoot something called a focus stack. This is when you take multiple photos of the same subject, each focused slightly farther back than the one before it. Then, in Photoshop or some other software, combine the sharpest part of each photo into a single image. Now, the big problem with this approac his that you pretty much need to do it from a tripod, and your subject can't be moving. So it's great if you're shooting in a studio, but it's often impossible in the field. Instead, the best option for a lot of photographers is to continue using a really narrow aperture, but just use a flash as well. When you have a flash that's so close to your subject, it actually outshines daylight. And, that way, you can shoot at even f/22 and still get a bright enough photo. But you can't solve one problem without creating another, and in this case your flash has to output very beautiful light, or it's not worth it. You don't want your subject to have ugly shadows and bright specular highlights. It just won't look good. So, to get nice light, you ne eed to then diffuse your flash. Now, you can buy a little pop-up diffuser for ten dolelars online, and the link to the one that I recommend is below. Or you can do what I do and make your own out of cardboard and plastic. Either way, doesn't matter. The key is that you need to experiment with what looks good. All right, now that you've got the basics of depth of field and lighting, let's talk about the specific camera settings you should use for macro photography. No generalizations; I'm going to give you exact exposure values that I recommend for different types of macro work.
 | |
|
Optimal Camera Settings
- Aperture
- First up is aperture. Now, let's assume that you're shooting one-to-one macro, and you're using a flash. Really, at this point, your goal is to get enough depth of field without using an aperture that's too narrow. You'll want to avoid f/32, f/45, and anything more than that,because those apertures start to become fairly blurry. And that's because of something called diffraction - not the topic of this video, but I did include a link below to our Photography Life article on the subject. So, what exact aperture should you use? Well, you want a lot of depth of field, and you want to avoid blur from diffraction. Now, ignore Canon cameras for a minute, because they actually calculate f -stop a bit differently from everyone else. Other than them, a good balance is somewhere from f/16 to f/22. But that's with a full-frame camera. If you have an aps -c camera like Nikon DX, that recommendation becomes f/10 to f/14. Or, if you use a Micro Four Thirds camera, that recommendation is f/8 to f/11. They all give you the same depth of field. The difference with Canon, though, is a bit confusing. I won't get into the technical details, but basically you want to cut all these numbers in half. And that's because aperture in general behaves a bit differently at high magnification. If youdon't believe me, read the manuals for Canon's own macro lenses. They say theexact same thing. All it really means is that you need to be more careful aboutyour aperture if you're a Canon shooter, because you might be effectivelyshooting at a smaller aperture than what the camera says. So, the good news, all theother settings are so much easier.
- Shutter Speed
Your shutter speed, for example, should stay exactly at your flash sync speed, usually 1/200th of a second, maybe 1/250th. And after that is your actual flash power. Now, this one should generally hover around 1/3 to 1/4 power. You don't want it to be too high, because then your flash will recharge slowly and you'll have to wait a few seconds between taking photos. For now, set it manually to one fourth power. We'll go back in a minute and make flash automatic, but not quite yet. And then the last setting is ISO.
- ISO
This is when you actually want to start taking sample photos of areal- world object. I recommend just a normal leaf focused at one-to-one magnification. Take photos as you ramp up your ISO, and give your flash time to recharge between shots. Then, stop taking pictures when you get one that's properly exposed. Now, say this happens at ISO 400. Then you would set that ISO, 400,on your camera, and not change it.
- Flash Power
Lastly, go back and turn your flash to automatic.
Now the flash will change its own power based on how reflective your subject is,but even though it's in automatic mode, you know that it will hover around that 1/4 power mark because of what we did earlier. Now, you still might need to adjust your flash compensation if it's consistently taking photos that are too dark or too bright, but that's really all that it takes. Your camera settings are now perfect for one-to-one macro photography. Although, of course, you should experiment with these numbers and make sure that they work for you. And again, if you're shooting something farther away like a flower, you have so much more flexibility. In that case, I recommend an easier approach. Just use your lens's widest aperture, or something close. Maybe f/4. Pick a shutter speed that you can handhold safely, like 1/250th of a second. And then set your ISO to whatever value gives you a good exposure. You can even turn on Auto ISO. This is what I tend to do at this point. There's no need for a flash if you have enough light. Just photograph it like you'd capture any other subject. And that wraps up camera settings! Next is focusing, which is more difficult than in some other types of photography, but not as hard as you might think.
 | |
|
Focusing Technique
The first thing to know about focusing in macro photography is that your camera's autofocus system probably can't keep up. Again, this is only true with high magnification photography. You're probably fine if you're photographing flowers. But when you're at one-to-two magnification, or one-to-one magnification, focusing can be really tricky. Even at f/22, your depth of field is so thin that you almost have to time your photos between heartbeats.
- Best Method
So here's the best method. Focus manually to whatever magnification you want. I usually go as far as my lens can:one-to-one. Make sure that all your camera settings are right, and then look through your viewfinder if your camera has one. Get close to your subject andstart to frame your photo. Slowly rock forward and backward until the rightspot on your subject is in focus. It's absolutely not a perfect method, but it'sthe best that I've found. With enough practice, you can even track focus on amoving subject, like in this photo that I took of a bug walking across a flower. Ofcourse, if your subject isn't moving, by all means use a tripod. You can focus automatically or manually at that point with good results. But that's just not practical for a lot of subjects. Lastly, I'll note that it's so much easier to take macro photos when it's not windy outside. Focusing can be a nightmare in windy conditions, and even a light breeze is a huge factor in macro photography. And that's it! I hope that you learned something from this video. Macro photography is all about practice, so go out, put these techniques to the test. Take some good photos even in your own backyard.
That's all about macro photograpy tips for beginners. If you have any questions please do let me know and i'll be more than happy to answer your questions. Until next time take care guys. Bye:)
Comments
Post a Comment
If you have any doubts.
Please let me know!!