- Hello boys and girls,
today we are explaining the beautiful world of
Macro.
I'm sorry, am I invading your personal space?
But anyways should we get out of this uncomfortable close up
and go look at some other stuff
that's possibly a little bit cooler
than my blackheads I got on my nose.
Carrie says, I need to really take care of these.
So first of all, what gear do we need?
I feel like there's four main ways to go about it.
And there are simple ways to do it with a phone
there's more complicated ways to do it, different lenses.
You can spend thousands of dollars on a fancy macro lens,
or you can get $20 adapters,
which will convert some of the gear
that you might already have,
and then start shooting macro on a really tight budget.
Also with me today is Frank, how are you doing?
- What's up, brother? - What are you doing?
- Experimenting with the 800 millimeter,
two times converter right now.
- This is the macro video.
The super telephoto video was a few videos back.
Have you done any macro stuff?
- (indistinct) photography.
- For the...
- For the rings, the gutter, the bouquet. Detail shots.
- I say we start off with the easiest,
which would probably be the new iPhone.
The iPhone 13 Pros already have
a really decent macro built in.
What iPhone do you have?
- The 10 R or something like that I don't even know.
- Loser. Have you seen the macro on the new iPhone?
- No, I have not. - You're in for a treat.
- So you have it here? - Yeah.
- Cool. - Of course I do.
I'm (indistinct)
- You have everything.
- And I have the latest and greatest.
- You have everything but the C70.
- For those of you who don't know,
my Canon C70 was stolen out of the Tesla the other day.
I didn't mean to leave it in the car.
I thought I brought it into the hotel,
go back and it was stolen so it's devastating.
But anyways, let's try not to think about it.
I'm trying to stay positive and get in a good mood
and you just keep bringing back,
- I know. - The things that hurts me.
It's time to experience the magic of the iPhone's macro.
Pretty good.
- I see, you can get really close.
- [Instructor] I got my finger.
- [Frank] That's crazy.
- One thing to keep in mind is when
it goes into this macro mode,
it doesn't actually focus the lens super closely,
it actually switches over to the ultra wide angle lens,
which I'll switch to right now.
And that's the lens that has the minimum focus.
But then when you're looking at it in 1x mode,
it basically just crops into the frame.
So it is kind of cropping into the sensor a bit.
So it's not as good as legit macro,
but still it's pretty impressive.
- [Frank] I dig this.
- [Instructor] Is it better than you thought
it was going to be?
- It is a million times better.
- One to definitely keep in mind in macro mode,
all your camera shakes are exponentially bigger.
So a tripod is a life saver.
It's kind of crazy because once you get it
to a certain point,
it's actually more than what you could see with the eye.
The inner workings.
It's like we're getting inside the dandelion.
We need to blow this out in slow motion.
Downside is that this macro doesn't work in slow motion,
but of course you could always just go
to your ultra wide angle,
which is basically the macro lens anyways,
and then film in slow motion this way.
Checking how close that lens is to the dandelion,
I think it's a two centimeter minimum focus distance.
(Frank blowing air)
I heard you were good at blowing Frank.
That's why I called you.
- No. No one's ever said that.
No one's ever said that.
- So this time I'm just going to hold the stem
so it doesn't blow around as much and action.
(Frank blowing air)
Were you allowed to blow out candles
at your birthday parties?
Keep in mind that even if you don't have
the latest iPhone 13 Pro Max, don't worry,
you can just take these macro lenses
that you can clip onto the front of your lens.
And it actually works decent.
- Pretty cool.
- It's just another thing you have to carry around
and then eventually just end up as clutter.
You'll never use it. - Never use it.
- But you can and it's fun for 10 minutes.
Now let's get a little bit fancier to some lenses.
I'll be using this.
And Frank, what's your macro of choice?
- I've got the 50 millimeter 2.5 lens.
Been using this lens for around 10 years.
- I'm going to go ahead and slap this on
and let's see what we can get.
Now if you've never went out
and just shot a lot of things in macro,
I would highly recommend it
because it is a totally different experience.
You can find a random bush that's half dead
and be, this is kind of magical, wow.
And people watching will probably think you're on drugs.
Because you'll find some random things to shoot.
You'll spend 25 minutes being, "Wow, this is amazing."
(laughs) (upbeat music)
So the minimum focus distance for this
a 100 mil is 0.99 feet.
And the 50 mil is actually at 0.8 feet.
So it actually has a closer focus distance.
But the macro on the 100 is definitely way in tighter
because it's a 100 mil.
And also that minimum focus distance
is measured from the sensor,
not from the front of the lens.
And you can see how long of a lens this is.
Do you know what technically makes a lens, a macro lens?
- I have no clue.
- It officially becomes a macro lens when the subject
that you're shooting becomes just as big
or bigger on the sensor.
So that's the one-to-one reproduction.
- I can see that.
- That's something I actually had to look up on Wikipedia.
That's something I didn't even know until just recently.
So there's actually a lot of lenses
that are called macro lenses, but technically they're not.
Because you know how small things
get projected onto sensors.
So you have to really take an insect
and make it fill up a chunk of the sensor.
- The whole sensor.
- It was actually funny when we took that 50 mil
and got a closeup of something.
And then we went to the 100
and it was, "This is way closer."
But then we brought out the iPhone
and it was actually the best.
I would actually call it the best
because the image quality is just better
out of these better sensors,
but still when it comes to how close
you can get that iPhone's macro is pretty insane.
- And the fact that you have it in your pocket
the whole time, I think that's really cool.
- Now this one opens up to F2.8
and that one's F2.5, - 2.5.
- But one thing to keep in mind with macro
is that the closer you pull your focus,
the shallower, the depth of field becomes.
So when you get right up here,
that depth the field is super shallow.
So if you're trying to get more
than a little sliver in focus,
you definitely need lots of lights.
What do you think the main purposes of macro is?
I know insect photography is very popular,
but I hate insects so (beep) that.
- I'm thinking maybe someone for product photography,
someone who's probably selling jewelry
or something like that.
- I also think it's just really interesting
to see something so up close,
it's like looking through a microscope.
Everything's interesting all of a sudden.
I'm personally using it a whole lot
to get different textures,
so I can design stuff with our sponsor Canva.
Now, us being in the creative space,
everything we touch needs a certain amount
of design to an extent,
Anything from the titles on a video
or Instagram stories or banners or flyers
or websites or whatever it is.
It's a huge list. It reminds me of that intro
to Star Wars, but that title going up,
it's like (mimics Star Wars intro)
And I'm just stuck down here trying
to figure out for hours,
what color I want that font to be?
You know what I'm talking about.
Canva is here to save our sanity.
It only takes a few minutes to upload your logo,
start sampling color palettes, fonts, templates.
It's really nice to be able to just see it
all laid out in front of you.
So you can be sure that the design will work
with all aspects of your brand.
And then all of a sudden we have a brand kit.
So all the creative can be clean and consistent
could really take a lot of the tedious work
and make it much more fun and inspiring.
Now I do try to use my own assets as much as I can,
so I can upload some of these macro textures.
The great thing about Canva Pro
is I get a 100 gigs of online storage
so I can have one centralized organized place
where all my design assets are
set of me trying to figure out where's that one video clip,
which hard drive is that on and on top of that,
they also do give you access to
over a 100 million assets
that you can use in your creative
and the key to getting good results fast
isn't starting from scratch.
It's starting from a template.
We have tons of options from reviews
to explainer videos, marketing videos,
sell, food, fashion, an end card for YouTube.
This could be really useful
and everything here is customizable.
I want to show you a feature
that's actually pretty impressive.
So let me go ahead and bring in a photo here.
There's a lot going on in this photo,
but I'm going to go ahead
and try to extract the background
with background remover, I just clicked it.
I didn't do anything else and look
How about something a little bit more naturey.
I'm going to go ahead drop in
that one thing we shot earlier
and go ahead and say replace background.
Those macro shots are actually looking pretty nice
back there aren't they?
I do want to try using that Christmas light shot we got
again, everything fully customizable
link down there in the description for a 45 day free trial.
Thank you so much Canva for sponsoring this episode,
Jonathan?
- Hey, what's up?
- Now we're talking about adaptor.
So there's two different versions we have here.
This is one with an optic inside.
You can see how there's these spring mechanisms inside.
So it clamps from the inside.
So it has a wide range of filter threads that it can fit in.
So I can go ahead and squeeze this,
put it up the lens, let go,
it sticks in and now check it out.
I got better macro capabilities out of the same lens.
So right there is as close as a 16 to 35 lens
can normally go. And if I throw this up top,
let's see how close you can go now.
Now we're talking. A little bit further back,
right there, perfect.
So there is a limit to how close
you can get with this adapter,
but it definitely brings it in quite a bit closer.
So here, you're working from your nose down,
but here you can get right up in there
and start counting those hairs.
You have a really nice beard.
- No, if a lot of people who have beards
are probably, "Oh my God, this guy doesn't comb,"
or, "this guy doesn't put product"
or, "he doesn't do anything."
- I'll say this,
you have a better beard than I do.
This thing here was around 75 bucks.
It's nice because it could fit onto any sort of lens
on any sort of mount, as long as
the front threads will fit to it.
But this one goes behind the lens
and all it really is, is a spacer.
So it takes the lens and pulls it further away
from the sensor.
And you can see it's actually two different pieces.
Most of these come like that.
So you could use a small one,
a slightly bigger one or you can stack them
and have a really fat one.
I got this one for about 25 bucks
and this is got to be mount specific.
So I'm going to go ahead and start off with a small one.
And this one does have the contact thins which is nice
because then I can still have aperture control
over this lens. So let me go ahead,
throw this on behind the lens and here we go.
That's a significant increase in minimum focus distance
problem is I can no longer focus on infinity.
So you're all the way out there. I can't focus on you.
Sorry, Jonathan. And for whatever reason,
you need to get something even closer.
I'll go ahead and attach the bigger one.
And now I can literally get right up to the lens.
My eye can actually touch the lens
and I can still focus to it.
But the problem is once you get this close,
all of a sudden you're blocking all the lights.
So it gets really dark.
(Jonathan mimics nibbling)
You try to disturb everybody.
You could see your DNA with this stuff.
Someone could take this footage and just clone you probably.
Now this is a super inexpensive lens. I got for 50 bucks.
It's a 50 mil F1 8 prime lens and check this out.
We're getting some pretty good macro out of this.
- [Jonathan] I feel like this lens is a lot softer.
- [Instructor] Actually I think I put
a bunch of Vaseline on this lens
and I never was able to get it all off.
- [Jonathan] Don't put Vaseline on.
As you could see my iris open and close.
- [Instructor] You can. That's actually kind of crazy.
- [Jonathan] Did it work?
- [Instructor] If you're on a budget
and you want really clean results like this,
this is the way to go. I mean,
this is like a $50 lens with a $20 adapter or $75 adapter.
And you're getting some macro shots
that are pretty dang impressive.
And if you have a decent camera,
then it's going to look real good.
Frank's over here trying to show us how rich is.
- [Frank] How close?
- [Instructor] Are there some symbols
within cash that are hidden?
If we can find some top secret messaging from the alumni,
not the alumni from the Illuminati.
Now I'm kind of curious what would happen
if I take the 100 mil,
which already has really good macro
and add these adapters on top of it.
So here focused all the way in on the 100 mil.
And now I'm going to go ahead
and attach the adapter upfront.
And what's nice about this one is it seems
like it loses very little exposure if any.
We're really starting to see the texture.
That's cool. Now time for the tubes.
Here we are even closer.
Now we do seem to lose a little bit of exposure
with the tubes and the amount of exposure loss
seems to vary depending on the lens.
I also heard that there's supposed to be better depth
of field with the adapter up front of the lens,
but that's something I didn't really notice.
They seem pretty comparable to me.
And finally we have ourselves the famous Laowa probe lens.
Now this lens has a minimum focus distance of 1.54 feet,
which doesn't sound that crazy good.
But remember we measure from the sensor.
So there's this icon right here,
which tells you where the sensor is
and this lens is pretty much that long.
So you can put anything right at the tip of the lens
and they'll be able to focus on it.
Now what's interesting is that we were able
to get even closer with the a 100 mil once
we put on those adapters.
But what makes this Laowa so unique
is that it's a 24 mil instead of 100.
24 mil is pretty wide opposed to having a telephoto lens
where you really laser focus onto something.
This feels more like you're there.
So it's like a big perspective change.
This thing is famous for being paired
with something like an Edelkrone slider.
See how it feels like instead of us zooming into this space,
it feels like we're actually moving in.
You wouldn't get nearly as much of this perspective shift.
If we were doing the same thing with a 100 mil.
Now this is a really cool combination.
I'm just looking for really tight spaces
that I can just push this probe lens through.
And it's so cool.
It feels like we're like a little insect
kind of going through a tight place.
You see such a unique lens.
It's super macro, but it's also very wide.
It can also be useful that this lens can go all the way
from infinity down to macro opposed to those adapters
where you have to take the adapters on and off
every time you switch between macro and a normal shot.
Now I swear this macro can make
pretty much anything look cool.
I'm not even trying
I'm just like this bush, it'll work.
I think there's like a shot like this
in the intro to the bug's life. Now it only,
I just got stabbed. You evil plant.
Oh my God it's so sharp.
Let's get a shot of this evil (beep) plant.
Now shooting with this lens can be a little bit challenging
because wide open it's at f/14.
So that's still really dark.
But luckily it comes with this micro USB,
which we can plug into any sort of battery pack
or whatever and have a light. And I can control the output.
Usually I'm not a big fan of having lights
on board of a camera or a lens.
But when you shove this lens into a tight place,
like a wasp nest that I put it into a wall back
it actually does become really helpful.
And also this whole front barrel is waterproof,
which is really nice.
If you need to get any sort of texture, liquid shots,
we were able to dip it into soda and all that.
But I could definitely make a whole video about this lens
or even the iPhones macro or the adapter.
So if there's any one of these things
that you want me to expand on
and make it a whole video about it,
let me know now there in the comments
and maybe I'll make a follow up.
Let's see how this looks. I'm mixing up the lenses.
Usually I'm on a 50 here but I'm trying out this 20 here.
Let's go ahead and pull up some questions
from Instagram about shooting macro.
James says, "Is purchasing a macro
for basic video freelance use worth it?"
I think it really depends on your style of shooting.
If you only shoot landscapes and you probably don't need it,
but if you want to shoot products or insects
then obviously you do need it.
But if you're kind of just, "I don't know, maybe"
then I would say get those adapters.
They're super inexpensive
and they give you more capabilities.
I would start there
and if you find yourself using it pretty often,
then maybe start looking into
getting dedicated macro lenses.
But 25 bucks is a pretty small investment
to have that much more capability out of your camera.
And you can just leave it in the corner pocket of your bag.
Austin says, "What is the difference
between the iPhone macro lens and the 100 mil Canon lens?"
And I was actually surprised again
that the iPhone was actually able
to get even closer to the 100 mil,
but 100 mil definitely looks much more professional.
Skimboardman says, "Make sure the object is clean
from any dust or particles
because the macro catches everything close up."
Absolutely carry around a microfiber carl with you
and those air sprayer things
or the thing with the spray can thing.
That reminds me, I have to go clean
the sensor of the camera.
I noticed that in a lot of the macro shots,
I can see particles and dirt and tag time.
Where's my air pump thing.
This is one of the crucial necessities of a camera.
And it's like a rocket. Is that what it's called?
I don't know. Link in description.
(air pump whooshing air)