Image copyright Mark Hamblin

Macro photography opens up a whole new world of opportunities for capturing eye-catching images, and late summer on into early autumn is a great time to get up close to your subjects.

The real bonus is that you don’t have to go far to find interesting subjects. You can spend hours photographing flowers, plants and mini-beasts in the smallest of gardens, and once you’ve got your eye in there will be no shortage of subject matter to focus on.

The ideal kit for garden macro photography is a specialist macro lens with a focal length of around 50mm to 200mm, but there are a couple of cheap and very effective alternatives.

Extension rings contain no optics, but are simply hollow tubes that fit between the camera and the lens, which enable the lens to focus much closer and therefore increase magnification. Extension rings come in various sizes, and used in combination with a short telephoto lens will get you close to the action.

You could also use close-up filters, which screw on to the front of the lens to allow closer focusing. Image quality may be reduced, but these filters are still a great way to get started with macro photography.

Macro work requires very precise control over focusing, composition, framing and lighting. Small adjustments in camera position can make a big difference to the picture, so you should always use a tripod.

It is possible to handhold the camera, and in some cases it can be an advantage to do so – when slowly approaching a resting insect, for example – but in most cases a solid support is a real help when it comes to framing and fine-tuning focus and composition.

The quality of the lighting is also crucial. Soft, overcast light is often best, because it lowers contrast, reducing harsh shadows and bright highlights that can mask detail in the subject.

Backlighting is also effective for semi-translucent subjects when photographed against a dark background, as in 
our striking opening shot.

But avoid strong, direct light, because this will only wash-out colour. Instead, modify the sunlight by using a white translucent diffuser, which will cast a softer light over the subject for more natural results.

Perhaps the most important aspect of macro photography is accurate focusing. When shooting close-ups, the amount of the subject that will be in sharp focus, even at small apertures (when depth of field is greatest) will still be very shallow.

Any focusing errors will therefore be obvious in the resulting picture and will undoubtedly ruin the shot.

Narrow your focus
For the majority of macro shots you should aim to focus on the most important part of the subject, such as the eye of an insect or the part of a flower that is most interesting.

Don’t get too hung up on having the whole of the subject in focus. Instead, try shooting at your lens’s maximum aperture (such as f/4).

This will create a very narrow depth of field so that only a small part of the subject is in focus. This is great for shooting flowers, creating a beautiful ‘dreamy’ soft-focus effect and a blending of colours.

For the best results, work close to the subject, too, because this reduces the depth of field further and exaggerates the blur.

PAGE 1: Camera craft and lighting
PAGE 2: 3 ways to improve close-up photos
PAGE 3: Why you should switch to macro mode
PAGE 4: Tips for increasing the quality of your macro photos

READ MORE

In Pictures: insect macro photography
How to set your autofocus for macro photography

Whether you shoot insect photography or not, when you’re working with tiny subjects, it’s almost impossible to point, shoot and come away with good results. You really need to think about composition and lighting, and also about the way you behave around nervous wildlife such as insects.

Below are 8 crucial tips every photographer should know when trying to shoot insect photography outside of a controlled environment.

Insect Photography Tip 1: Find a beautiful subject
Select good specimens. If a macro shot is worth taking then it’s worth taking well. Avoid insects with tatty wings, or bees on flowers that are wilting or vegetation that’s been munched.

Insect Photography Tip 2: Avoid direct flash
Study the structure of the subject to work out the best way to light it. Shiny leaves or beetles will reflect light, so avoid direct flash. However, translucent wings or leaves will look more dramatic if they’re backlit.

Insect Photography Tip 3: Use a macro or long lens
Fill the frame! There’s no point taking a macro shot if there’s acres of space around the subject. Be aware that insects can crawl out of the frame if you approach too close too quickly. By using a longer zoom or macro lens you’ll gain a greater working distance.

Insect Photography Tip 4: Mix it up a bit
Vary the composition. If you’re spending a few hours taking one subject, whether it be butterflies or flowers, vary the camera angle and composition. For example, take shots of butterflies with their wings open, head-on, feeding and maybe mating. Don’t forget to take a mix of vertical and horizontal shots.

Insect Photography Tip 5: Ditch the tripod
Switch on image stabilisation if your lens has that option. This will reduce camera-shake when you’re shooting handheld. Dispensing with a tripod provides more flexibility for reacting to changes in a subject’s position.

Insect Photography Tip 6: Use a monopod
Use a support for sharper shots. On warmer days, insects will have flown out of shot by the time you set up a tripod, so a monopod is a better option. However, recently emerged insects have to rest until their wings have dried out, and a tripod allows slower shutter speeds and fine-tuning of the composition (see our 4 tips for sharper shots when using a tripod).

Insect Photography Tip 7: Avoid distractions
Keep backgrounds simple. Look beyond the subject to make sure there’s nothing distracting in the shot. If there is, move slightly to one side to alter the camera angle.

Insect Photography Tip 8: Dress for the weather
Dress in layers if you’re visiting someplace like a tropical butterfly house. Whatever the weather outside, tropical butterflies won’t survive in low temperatures, so it will be warm inside! Be prepared to take off outer layers so you can work in comfort.

READ MORE

The right way to set up your camera
Digital camera effects from A-Z
12 common errors of night photography (and how to fix them)

Photo ideas don’t get much simpler. All you need to create photo art like this is a simple home studio and a collection of kitchen utensils. No fancy studio lighting or extreme macro gear required. You could even shoot this with a compact.

It’s amazing what you can photograph at home with a little bit of imagination and creativity. We’ve already shown you how to make fine-art food photos and create minature landscape pictures (out of mashed potato). Now it’s time to turn the contents of your cutlery drawer into photographic art. Take a regular kitchen fork, for example – we use them every day, but how often do we take the time to stop and admire their beauty? Probably never for most of us, and that’s where we’re missing a trick. With the right lighting, composition and treatment, everyday objects can become exciting photographic prospects.

The set-up’s simple. You need nothing more than an angle-poise lamp and a piece of white card to make a straightforward but effective tabletop home studio. Getting the lighting right requires a bit of trial and error, and it will take some experimentation before you nail it. Use your DSLR’s LCD to get a good idea of lighting and switch your picture style to black and white, so the LCD displays a mono image. This is a superb ‘pre-visualisation’ tool, and if you’re shooting in RAW (which we recommend) your files will still have all the colour information anyway, should you change your mind later on.

How to create kitchen photo art

1. Find an angle

To create strong shadows, use an angle-poise lamp so it’s easy to alter the direction of the light. Use a piece of white card to make a scooped backdrop and experiment with the angle of the lamp.

2. Camera settings

Shoot in RAW and set your DSLR to monochrome so the images on the LCD appear in black and white – most cameras can do this. It’s a great pre-visualisation tool, and your original file will still have all the colour information anyway. Working with a tripod-mounted camera enables you to use a low ISO setting for maximum quality. We used mid-range aperture settings (f/8 – f/11), but experiment with different apertures until you find the balance of blur/sharpness you prefer.

3. Processing the images

Create a Black & White adjustment layer in Photoshop and experiment with the colour sliders. Then create a Curves adjustment layer and make a generous ‘S’ curve for a hard look with strong contrast.

Everyday kitchen objects can come to life with simple but creative lighting. Frame up the shot with your camera free of the tripod to find the best compositon.

Increase the impact of your pictures by framing them as diptychs and triptychs. You can create your own templates in Photoshop, or simply download our readymade 25 free triptych frames and drop in your own images.

Read More

Photo Ideas

In Pictures

Follow us on Pinterest!

Photo ideas don’t come much more entertaining than this. The idea of placing model figures in amongst ingredients can transform a meal into a miniature landscape. Fry ups turn into meat safaris and soup bowls become steaming savoury jacuzzis. Of course there are many other everyday household objects that make excellent settings for macro scenarios, but food is ideal. It can be easily sculpted and is instantly recognisable. Here, that great British staple, bangers and mash, works a treat as the Smash instant mash mix could be easily manipulated into the shape of a mountain. But there are many other areas in our daily life where miniature adventures can take place – all you need is a little imagination. Here are some photo ideas to give you food for thought…

In addition to a DSLR and tripod, you need:

Location

Food is a wonderful material for making miniature landscapes. Just about anything will do if you use a little imagination. The budget sausages, tinned peas and packet of Smash used for the main image above only cost about £2.50, and they were perfect. And best of all you can eat your set once you’re finished. For a background we found a standard cleaning cloth, which produced a good-looking sky. Once you’ve located and constructed your miniature landscape it’s time to introduce the characters…

Figures

Sourcing the right figures for a scene is essential to creating a story. Hornby sells some wonderful sets of figures. For less than £6 you can pick up a themed collection of around six characters.Preiser has a great range too. Your local model-making shop can also be a good resource for other accessories to refine your figures, such as paint and brushes. Position your figures so they tell a story – a random collection of models on a plate of food will just look, well, random.

Lighting

To light the scene, use two off-camera flashguns: one for the background and one for the subject. Use a home-made reflector to bounce the light. If you only have one flashgun, try using more than one reflector, carefully positioning them to create a sense of depth in the scene. To create a harder and more direct reflected light, try covering one of them with kitchen silver foil.

Macro lens

We used a 60mm macro lens. The figures are tiny, so you will be working at greater than life size magnification. You can of course fit close-up diopters or extension tubes on regular lenses, but a dedicated macro lens is more convenient. Longer focal length macros will give you more working distance between the camera and the models.

Camera settings and technique:

1. Camera setup

For macro effects to work here, you need to keep your camera setup as simple as possible. Because we were working with multiple flashguns, we needed to switch everything to manual, including exposure settings, focus and flash power. Start off by establishing a good general exposure, establishing the depth of field you want. This will vary from scene to scene, but here we used f/8, which was perfect for the scale of the set. Next, introduce the main light, adjusting the flash power rather than changing the camera settings. Use your DSLR’s LCD screen and histogram to assess the lighting, and once you’re happy with the main light, introduce the second background light. You’ll need to focus manually for precision focusing at close range.

2. Lighting tips

In our setup we used two flashguns and a simple home-made reflector to light the scene. If you don’t have two flashguns you can easily improvise with your on camera’s pop-up flash and a more elaborate combination of reflectors – try using silver foil as an alternative to white card. If you do have two flashguns, position one (set to Slave mode) to illuminate the background. Remember, lighting the background separately helps create depth. The other flashgun is taken off-camera, and positioned to the left of the scene to give a ‘sculptural’ feel to the mash mountain.

3. Additional equipment

We used a Seculine Twin Link T2D radio trigger to fire the flash remotely. A small reflector made of white card is perfect to fill in the shadow areas and was positioned to the right. Natural light can also work well, so if you don’t want to use flash, find an area near a north-facing window.

Top tip: think of a story

However lighthearted your scene, establishing a sense of narrative is really important. In our sausage shot above you can see that there’s a conversation between the characters. “Help, I’m stuck in sausage fat!” There’s an imagined dialogue between them that makes the scene seem realistic. So when choosing figures, try to visualise how they will interact and what type of scene will work best. Try to add drama (or comedy) for extra impact….

Like this creative photography project? Now try these:

Photo ideas: shoot creative light spirals at home

Photo ideas: photographing smoke and smoke photo art

Photo ideas: amazing water drop photography

Photo ideas: photographing water splashes with flash

32 photography projects for 2011

10 photography project ideas to try at home

Read More

Photo Ideas

In Pictures

Follow us on Pinterest!

There’s so much more to macro photography than conventional photos of insects and flowers – and you don’t have to travel far to find something more creative to point your digital camera at If you’ve never tried it before, photographing the surface of soap film is a simple way to create close-up art – all in the comfort of your kitchen. The only problem is, the form and colour of soap film constantly change, which can seem challenging to capture with your camera at first. Follow this easy step-by-step guide, and you’ll be shooting psychedlic soap bubble pictures in no time…

In addition to a DSLR and tripod, you need:

Soap and glycerine

Using standard soap bubbles ?or washing-up liquid without an additive means your medium won’t last very long – in some cases just a few seconds, and this will be further shortened by stretching the soap film over the wire loop. So make your own mix with 6 parts liquid soap and 1 part glycerine. You’ll create a strengthened film with an extended lifespan.

100mm macro lens

A focal length of at least 100mm enables you to get close to the film without running the risk of disturbing it. While this won’t fill the frame completely with colour, it will give you space to manoeuvre the camera around the wire loop.

Black background

Using a black piece of cloth ?as a backdrop is essential to absorb reflections and help to stop light bouncing back at the soap film. It ?also increases the contrast and colour intensity.

Wire loop

The simplest way to create the film is to make a wire loop out of garden wire. Create one loop with ?a diameter of about two inches. Another larger loop underneath that will act as a stand. Your final loop should look like two stacked loops connected by a single piece of wire.

Camera settings and technique:

1. Find the best location

The colours created by soap film only appear when hit by light from a certain angle, about 45 degrees, so it’s important your location is by a window, out of direct sunlight. If you’re using artificial light, make sure that it’s bounced off a wall rather than used directly.

2. Aperture and shutter speed

Set your camera to manual exposure (M) so you can specify both aperture and shutter speed. As you’ll be shooting at high magnification, depth of field will be minimal – so you need to use a small aperture to extend it as much as possible. Set an aperture of f/10 and a shutter speed of at least 1/60 sec.

3. ISO setting

Now you’ll need to set the ISO. This will vary depending on the light levels and could be anywhere from 100 to 2000. Higher settings mean faster shutter speeds, which are useful when trying to capture a moving, morphing substance like a soap bubble. The trade-off is more digital noise in your pictures. Finally, mount your camera on a tripod, and with manual focus selected, focus on the wire loop (autofocus will struggle with translucent soap film, and hunt for the nearest solid object).

4. Seeing the colours

With the basic set-up covered, now comes the real fun! Dip the wire loop into your soap mixture and place it onto the black cloth. Now, move around the wire loop to find the angle at which the colours appear. You may need to tilt and rotate the wire to find a good position that reveals a nice effect. Once you’ve found the best effect, adjust your SLR on the tripod and focus on the most attractive patterns in the soap film (they tend to be at the edges of the ring). Only around 1/5th of the frame will be sharp, but you can crop into the image in Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements to get the image you want.

After a few seconds, the colours start to expand across the film, creating swirls. Wait for this to settle before starting your sequence of shots. The longer you leave the soap film, the more the patterns and colours break up, giving a lovely marbled effect.

Top tip: use live view

A good tip is to use your DSLR’s live view feature at x5 magnification and carefully focus in on the detail. Now, using a shutter release cable, or your DSLR’s timer delay feature, shoot away. Even if you shoot in burst mode, each frame will look completely different.

Like this creative photography project? Now try these:

Photo ideas: shoot creative light spirals at home

Photo ideas: photographing smoke and smoke photo art

Photo ideas: amazing water drop photography

Photo ideas: photographing water splashes with flash

Read More

Photo Ideas

In Pictures

Follow us on Pinterest!

It’s time to get creative with your dinner ingredients with one of our favourite photo ideas. In this project, we’re going to show you a few simple photography tips that you can use to take beautiful ‘fine art’ styled pictures of fruit and vegetables. Food photography is always fun, as you get to eat the subjects after you’ve taken the shots. Not that we started chewing on the red onion featured here though…

In addition to a DSLR and tripod, you need:

A light box

A light box is essential for this kind of food photography. If you don’t have one, they can be picked up second-hand through the well-known online auction sites relatively cheaply, or if you’re more adventurous, try making your own. All you need is a sheet of glass, some tracing paper and an angle-poise lamp.

A right-angle viewfinder

A right-angle viewfinder isn’t essential for this project, but it will make composing your shots a lot easier. With the camera suspended between the legs of your tripod it can be quite awkward to frame your shot. If you don’t have a right-angle viewfinder, live view is a good alternative – if your SLR has it.

A macro lens

As you’re working fairly close to the subject and you’re limited by the height of your tripod – particularly as your camera  is suspended beneath its legs – use a macro lens with a relatively short focal length. The Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 (mounted on a full-frame Nikon D700) we used here was perfect.

Fruit and vegetables

You don’t need exotic fruit and veg for this project – you can try anything you like. For a few quid you should be able to get more than enough to get started. Visualise how a specimen might look when sliced and placed on a light box. The red onion, cucumber, orange and kiwi used here worked a treat.

Camera settings and technique:

1. Set up your tripod

Remove the central column of your tripod and reattach it the wrong way round with the head hanging below the centre. This will enable you to take pictures of the flat surface of the light box more easily. Place the tripod over the light box and attach your camera. If you’re working on a small table top, make sure the tripod is secure by applying some gaffer tape around the feet, fixing it in place.

2. Prepare the food

Use a clean, sharp knife to slice the fruit and vegetables as thinly and evenly as possible, then place them on the light box. Any unevenness will affect the tonality of your image. If you’re using multiple slices, such as in our main red onion , arrange each slice carefully so that together they create a balanced and harmonious composition. Moving each slice just a millimetre or two can have a big impact on the final shot. Now close the curtains to darken the room and prepare your exposure.

3. Choose the exposure settings

Like most close-up work, it’s best to switch your focus from autofocus to manual to ensure pin-sharp results and avoid the frustration of the AF searching for a focus lock. The bright light of the light box will deceive your camera’s light meter. It’s a little like shooting in the snow – all that brightness will cause the camera to underexpose in an auto mode. For the best results dial in an exposure compensation of between +1 and +2 stops, or switch to manual mode. Ideally, you’ll want to use an aperture of about f/8 for enough depth of field. To avoid camera shake, lock the mirror in the up position and avoid touching your camera by using a cable release or self timer.

4. Check the histogram

Assess your exposure using your camera’s histogram. Don’t be alarmed if it looks like there’s some radical clipping on the highlights on the right of the graph. It doesn’t matter if they burn out – this will be down to the parts of the image that should be totally white. However, it is important that there’s detail in the subject, so check this carefully. If you’re in any doubt, take the time to download a test shot to your computer to review before proceeding.

Top tip: shooting tethered

For indoor photography projects such as this, attaching your camera directly to your computer and shooting tethered is a great way to maximise your workflow and get the best possible results. Programs such as Adobe’s Lightroom 3 make this easy. It’s particularly useful for this project, because looking through the viewfinder can be a little awkward.

Taking it further:

To make a striking and innovative piece of fruit and vegetable art we created a simple grid, bringing four of our specimens together. You can download 10 free photo grids, or create your own in Photoshop. Shoot each slice individually, then in Photoshop CS and above, or Elements, use the Free Transform tool to alter the diameter of each slice. Then copy and paste them into a new document as multiple layers and form an artful grid. Once you’re happy, print, frame and put it on the kitchen wall for a striking piece of art.

Like this creative photography project? Now try these:

Photo ideas: shoot creative light spirals at home

Photo ideas: photographing smoke and smoke photo art

Photo ideas: amazing water drop photography

Photo ideas: photographing water splashes with flash

Read More

Photo Ideas

In Pictures

Follow us on Pinterest!