Life hacks for macro photography | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Good equip­ment is the key to suc­cess. But often, even hav­ing the right set of tools does not guar­an­tee good shots.

The more you exper­i­ment and refine your tech­nique, the bet­ter your images will turn out. Here are some impor­tant tips for per­fect macro shots.

1. Prac­tice. A lot of. The fact that you’re shoot­ing tiny objects at very close range makes every­thing sound new. Macro pho­tog­ra­phy out­doors is fun and reward­ing: almost every­thing around is a poten­tial sub­ject. Plants, flow­ers, insects, grass, weeds, rocks, and so on — almost every sub­ject has some aspect that can be turned into a great macro shot.

Many peo­ple fall in love with macro pho­tog­ra­phy in nature. But even with­out going out­side, you can find every­thing for great macro pho­tog­ra­phy: most of the objects you will find at home are mes­mer­iz­ing from super close dis­tances. Veg­eta­bles in the fridge, knick-knacks on the shelves, and even the con­tents of your pock­et can be the sub­ject of macro exper­i­ments.

unsplash.com

2. Solve the depth of field dilem­ma. The clos­er you get to the sub­ject, the shal­low­er the depth of field becomes, and this can make it dif­fi­cult to get the entire sub­ject in focus. If you’re using a com­pact cam­era, there’s noth­ing you can do about it, but if you have a DSLR, you can increase the depth of field by decreas­ing your aper­ture (choos­ing a larg­er f‑number).

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, decreas­ing the aper­ture reduces the amount of light, so you may have to low­er your shut­ter speed to com­pen­sate. If you have a very slow shut­ter speed, it’s hard to get a sharp image with­out blur due to cam­era shake. You can solve this prob­lem to some extent by increas­ing the cam­er­a’s ISO sen­si­tiv­i­ty, but this is not reli­able; Increas­ing ISO inevitably increas­es visu­al “noise”, so use this set­ting with care. The only real solu­tion is to take lots and lots of macro shots, become thor­ough­ly famil­iar with the capa­bil­i­ties of the cam­era, and fig­ure out what com­bi­na­tion of aper­ture, depth of field, and ISO works best for you.

3. Use man­u­al focus when­ev­er pos­si­ble. If you’re using a com­pact cam­era, man­u­al focus may not be the best option, but if you’re using a DSLR, you can get bet­ter macro shots by work­ing with man­u­al focus instead of rely­ing on the cam­era.

unsplash.com

4. Sta­bi­lize the cam­era as much as pos­si­ble. Use a tri­pod and a remote shut­ter release, or at least make sure your cam­era is as sta­ble as pos­si­ble. The blur­ring effect of even the slight­est move­ment is enhanced at high­er opti­cal zoom and at very close range, so hold­ing the cam­era as tight as pos­si­ble is the key to get­ting the best shots. If you’re not using a remote shut­ter release, try shoot­ing while exhal­ing to avoid hand shake.

5. Move the sub­ject, not the cam­era. When you shoot a staged sub­ject, fix the cam­era and do not move it. Once your shot is light bal­anced and well focused, hold your cam­era like this and make adjust­ments by mov­ing your sub­ject. Try to posi­tion the sub­ject on a sur­face that can be eas­i­ly moved, lift­ed, etc. This can save a lot of time.

6. Use a dif­fer­ent back­ground. This tip won’t work if you’re shoot­ing out­doors, but try it indoors. Some­thing as sim­ple as a stack of col­or­ful col­ored paper can be a source of inspi­ra­tion.

7. Adjust the com­po­si­tion. Don’t rely on post-pro­cess­ing to cre­ate the per­fect image — cap­ture the best shot as you shoot. If you’re focus­ing on a pat­tern with­in an object, move it around until the pat­tern fills the entire frame with­out gaps. If you are shoot­ing a small object as a whole, posi­tion it so that there is even space around it on all sides. Exper­i­ment with the focus point: some­times even the slight­est change will make the sub­ject in the frame look com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent.

8. Keep order. When you’re doing macro pho­tog­ra­phy, every lit­tle thing counts. Dust, pet hair, and fin­ger­prints that can­not be seen with the naked eye can spoil the image.

unsplash.com

9. Exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent angles. There is a def­i­nite rec­om­men­da­tion: it is worth start­ing shoot­ing at an angle in which the front side of the lens will be par­al­lel to the most impor­tant details of the object. This increas­es the focus area of ​​your sub­ject and makes it eas­i­er to get sharp­er details. But keep in mind that small changes have a sig­nif­i­cant effect on macro pho­tog­ra­phy, so even a slight change in angle can give you a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent shot.

10. Don’t be afraid of flash. Since macro pho­tog­ra­phy uses very small aper­tures that lim­it light, flash can be use­ful, espe­cial­ly when shoot­ing out­doors with­out addi­tion­al light­ing. Almost any flash will do, but using a dif­fuser will give the light a less harsh and more nat­ur­al look.

You can buy flash dif­fusers, but in fact you can also use any translu­cent white mate­r­i­al by plac­ing it between the flash and the sub­ject.

Macro pho­tog­ra­phy is a fas­ci­nat­ing genre that can become a life’s work. All the objects around us are excel­lent heroes for macro pho­tog­ra­phy. There is no lim­it to cre­ativ­i­ty, and any­one with a dig­i­tal cam­era already has the equip­ment they need to get start­ed.

unsplash.com