You can take macro photos like this, in your home,
without any special equipment. And actually, once you know the right steps, it's not even that hard.
In today's video, I'm going to give you a bunch of good macro photography ideas and demonstrate
exactly how to get photos like that using common household objects that you probably already have.
For this video, you're going to need a camera with any macro lens, or even the kit lens
that came with your camera, plus a tripod, an off-camera flash, and a backdrop. If you don't
have a backdrop, you can make one for yourself by ironing a shirt, draping it over a box,
and holding it in place with a couple of books. It's okay if it looks weird from the outside;
that's half the fun of macro photography anyway. So once you get that set up, the first idea that
I've got for you is to take a CD that you don't need anymore, and a spray bottle. Put the CD
on your brand new backdrop. And now give it a couple of sprays for a very interesting look.
And you can experiment with the angle of the CD and the direction of light to change how your
photos look. Right here, for example, I started out with one light, but I soon added a second,
and now I have an army of robots! When everything's said and done,
here's how your photos are going to look.
So let's step it up a little with this next one. We're going to photograph
patterns and textures in ice, although you probably don't want to use the type
from your freezer, because it's not really very photogenic. Instead,
I'm going to show you how to make completely clear ice starting from scratch.
At this point, it's time to take some pictures, and I would say that the best setup for your
lighting equipment is to actually light the ice from underneath. I leave it up
to you how to do that in the least messy way, but here's how my final photo looks,
pretty cool. The setup here does take a bit of time, but I think that it's 100% worth it.
Now, this next idea is really fun. You're going to photograph splashes of water
at the instant before they disappear. So here are the steps that you need to follow.
For your lighting, I would shine the flash on a large surface, maybe the ceiling or the wall,
just to get soft and diffused light. Now, for camera settings, I used 1/200th of a second, f/8,
and ISO 400. If you're not familiar with what those settings mean,
check out my other video on macro photography, where I talk about the
best camera settings to use. In this case, though, here's what you can get.
Also, try changing around the color of the light, the water, or the background. I was
able to get this photo by slicing an orange and putting that behind my subject. So, there's a
lot of creative things that you can do here. This is a very interesting type of photography.
This next one is the best. It's seriously so fun. What you're going to do is photograph
drops of oil that are floating on top of water. But, from the correct angle,
it's almost like you're looking at another planet. Now, the setup here is a bit complicated,
but nothing that you need special equipment for.
I think that it's the best, in most cases, to light this setup from below,
by bouncing your flash off the tablecloth and shining it underneath your subject.
If you want, you can also add food coloring or change the color of your light
by putting some flash gels in front of your flash.
And, at the end of the day, the photos from this setup can turn out really cool.
Another good subject is to photograph slices of fruit after you drop them into a container
full of water. The setup here is really easy. You just slice some fruit into thin pieces,
and then fill a vase or an old aquarium tank most of the way with water.
Just like before, I recommend bouncing the flash off the ceiling, or anything else, to make the
light a little bit softer. At this point, the only tricky thing left is timing. It's not
always easy to drop the fruit and take the photo with perfect timing, so you might need to try a
few times before you get it right. Once you're done, here's the type of photo that you can get.
A few pretty quick ideas that I like to do are: Take a stack of paper,
and curl it into different shapes. Now you can play around with depth
of field and the color of your light to get some pretty interesting shots.
And you can also do something very similar with fabric. Right here, my light was very soft,
and the fabric is also very soft, which I think makes for a nice and gentle photo.
And then for something a bit more intense, you can take a sponge and light it from the side or
underneath, and it has a very abstract appearance. To me, it almost looks like the surface of Mars.
Now these definitely aren't the only good ideas for macro photography subjects.
You can do so many others using everyday objects that you find around your house.
So, go out there, search around, and I'm sure that you'll take some amazing macro photos!
Subscribe if you liked it. My name is Spencer Cox. And I'll see you next time.