Hey, this is Scott of Photography Banzai.
Today we're going to look at this goofy macro setup I put together on a
whim. I wanted to use what I had on a hand. Do some macro photography...
and this is it.
At least some of it. I had a Canon EOS M50 camera. Two different sets of
extension tubes. EF-M and then also M42 mount with a M42 mount lens. This is
Asahi Super Takumar 50mm F/1.4 lens. Basically Pentax before they
were Pentax. Really nice simple normal lens. I also had the smallrig cage and
two different brackets with two.. lighting.. pieces. So we have these simple LED
lights. They're bi-color. I was probably at 5200K in that case set to 75%
power on both of them. Simple setup, but in the land of macro photography
I'm sure it's relatively tame. The main goal was to see how it work out, and have
some fun with macro photography. I took the rig out to my local state
park. Two different areas. One area had a nice large pond. Tried to get some photos.
I wanted to get photos of sand, but it's all blocked off with fencing. So I really
couldn't get much of that. But there were a few different areas. It was extremely
windy, which made it challenging to get focus and such.
Moved on to another area,
which was a little better.
Macro photography is so unique compared to
other styles or other types of photography, in my opinion. Because you
move two steps and you have a new subject. It's potentially very foreign
and very different than what we see in everyday life. And it's just really fun
to take a crazy setup out and mess around with it. With macro photography
there are a few things to keep in mind when you want to do it. One is light. You
want to get as much light as possible into the scene. Because you want to use
smaller apertures. I really couldn't lower my aperture too much in this situation
even with those two lights there. But I tried to do it as much as I can because
you want more in focus. And when you're doing macro photography you have
generally very thin depth of field to work with. You can adjust your position
to get more generally in focus based on what you're photographing. Like if it has
nice flat surface. Try to get that flat surface on the main focus plane. But also
keep in mind: You got the light, you have the small apertures, and focusing! So with
focusing I take the lens and have it focus as close as it can. And then I just
use my hands. I use my arms. I use my whole body to adjust where it's focusing.
It's relatively easy to tell where it's focusing because it's generally so thin
depth of field.
As for the results I think they turned out pretty interesting. But of course
with the lens. It's not super amazing quality wise, and I couldn't use smaller
apertures a lot of the time. I just didn't have enough light even when it
was outside with those extra lights. It was a little challenging especially with
the lights that I use that are kind of big and they restricted my movement up
close to surfaces and things of that nature. But I think if you want to really
get an easier time with macro. One, use a dedicated macro lens and then add
extension tubes to that. That way usually maybe a 100mm lens or 150
even 200mm macro lens will give you a lot more working distance in those
situations. But besides that it worked relatively well. I hope you enjoyed this
little photo outing with macro photography and this goofy looking setup.
I definitely enjoyed going out there and taking photos with it.
I'm Scott from Photography Banzai.
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