Hi, I am Doug McKinlay and you are watching AdoramaTV.
AdoramaTV presents Stay Focused with Doug McKinlay. Hi, I'm Doug acKinlay you're
watching AdormaTV. For this segment we're going to look at making tight close-up pictures using
macro photography. I suppose the first question asked is what is macro
photography? Well, the short answer is - it's extreme close-up photography usually of
small subjects where that subject is greater to or larger than real life. Now in terms
of lenses were going to be using a 100mm 2.8 Canon lens day.
A macro lens. It's a good all-round lens, now there are other methods to getting
macro pictures you can use close-up filters, reversing rings, or extension
tubes but I think if you want to get serious with macro pictures, and you must
try to get yourself one of the dedicated lenses. Macro photography can be done
either hand held or on a tripod. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Hand-held
you're on the move, you can move quickly, you don't have to worry about setting up ever shot.
The downsides are though that if you don't have a bright sunny day you're going to
be limiting your depth of field on a lens that already has a limited depth of
field, so that could cause a problem. Now the advantage of having a tripod is, you got
a stable shooting platform, and you don't have to worry about that so much. You can
adjust your aperture to 11 or 16, and not worry so much about the shutter speed.
Of course shooting from a tripod the disadvantages are, it's a bit tricky to
move it around all the time. Every shot you take from a tripod, generally means you're
going to have to move the whole setup. Now this is going to depend on our weather. If it's a cloudy,
overcast day you're shooting, you're probably going to have to go to the tripod anyhow,
and keep in mind that that, that macro lens is always going to have a diminished depth
of field, just by the physics of the lens.
The great thing about macro is that you are always on the look out for something interesting to
shoot. Could be anything, could be leaves, rocks,
anything you might think interesting. Ha, we got some horse chestnuts, they'll do just nicely.
Those are fantastic.
So I found a subject a handful of horse chestnuts. There are no insect life at this time of
year, so that we have to use what we can find. Next I want to find a place to shoot from, and fortunately there
is this nice concrete bit here, we can use as a macro lab, so to speak.
It's nice and elevated, I'm not going to get my knees dirty, it should be easy to shoot from.
Now next up, with macro, you are definitely going to need your tripod. Now there is a little trick you can do
with your tripod these days. You can reverse the center post, so basically what you're going to be doing is
shooting upside down.
It allows you to get close to your subject, in a more comfortable position.
It just takes a little time to play around your pod to get that position right. Now
with this pod. This is an Induro Pod, it's very simple, you just loosen off the nut,
take off the little hook in the centre of the post. And it's just a screw in. Pop it out, take out your
stem, make sure you line up the brackets slide it through, re-attach the top.
There you have it, now you've got an upside-down shooting position, when it
comes to macro stuff, it really helps, because you get closer to your subject. With macro
photography, the devil is in the details, it's all about making sure you've got
everything set up. You have to make sure your your depth of field was chosen correctly,
your focus is right, your composition is right. Now with most DSLR cameras
today, you've got a live view option at the back of the camera like a TV screen where you
can turn that on, and see exactly what you've got. That way you can fine-tune all the
little bits and pieces. And it's the best way to check your focus, because you can
zoom in using using your zoom button, five times or even ten times,
just to check the focus. Make sure your barrel is turned to manual focus,
and once you're happy with the picture, turn off the live view, and it's just a
matter of getting the shot. Now we're working on a bit of an overcast day today so I'm
going to have to put a bit of light onto the subject. Now there is two ways we can do that. We
can use a flash, hand-held flash attached to our hot shoe with a cable, or with a
pocket wizzard release. Or we can use a reflector, or we can use both. I think by
using both you get really good control over the light falling onto your subject. So depth of field
comes into play now. It's probably the key element in macro photography. In essence
your f number should be about f16, nothing bigger, nothing wider to try and
keep that subject in focus. Even a small movement in your depth of field is
going to have a major impact on your pictures, so as you're going through the
process of taking your macro pictures, don't forget to change your point of view from
time to time
mix it up a little bit, and keep an eye on the light is going to shift all day
long, and don't forget you can give your pictures a boost of light by adding a flash,
reflector, or both. And you can use a polarizing filter to help really deepen the
color as well. Try to avoid using the auto white balance all the time.
Try some other settings, the daylight setting, the shady setting, the cloudy
setting. Or you can even change that the Kelvin scale manually. Remember it's all
about experimentation. Learning about your camera, and how this lens works.
Alternatively you can try to focus stack. This is what the pros do. The camera is
firmly mounted on a tripod, composition is in place, and the light is correct and even. You then take
a series of images, was just the focusing on the back and the front of the subject and them
incrementally re-focus along your subject until you come to end. And then you can combine those
images on the computer to create one imagines that is tack sharp.
The key is to keep the camera from moving at all.
We want to hear about your experiences with macro photography.
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