- Macro filmmaking is a great way
to infuse new creativity and life into your videos.
It takes things that are generally small
and makes them feel big
and in this video, I'm gonna share with you
my best tips for macro videography
that I've picked up since buying
my first macro lens this year.
Well, hey there, I'm Brady Shearer from Storytape.com,
a cinematic stock footage site
that gives you access to unlimited video downloads
for one low monthly cost.
We publish video production tips and tricks on this channel,
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You might be wondering, what is macro filmmaking?
What is a macro lens?
And so before we start into my best tips and tricks,
things you need to know pertaining to macro video,
let's first get a solid understanding
for what it even means.
Here's the deal.
A macro lens is different from a regular camera lens
in two important ways.
Firstly, the magnification.
The magnification of a macro lens
generally has a one to one ratio.
What this means is that the image you record
with your macro lens can be projected onto your sensor
up to the exact same size that it is in real life.
So if you were shooting a video clip of a quarter,
which is about an inch in diameter,
with a macro lens, it would show up as an inch in diameter
in your video.
Now you might be thinking,
"Brady, what's so special about a one to one ratio?
"Are not all lenses this way?"
And while that may seem logical,
a typical video or photo lens does not shoot
with a one to one magnification ratio.
And that means that a typical lens
could not replicate a subject on video
as it's actual size.
A typical lens makes what we see in real life
actually look smaller than it really is
and even if you moved your camera lens as close
to your subject as you possibly could get it,
it would look big, but then you wouldn't be able
to focus on your subject cause you'd probably be
too close to it.
And that leads to the second key distinction
of macro lenses.
Macro lenses generally
have a shorter minimum focus distance
than your typical lens.
What this means is that you can get very close
to your subject and still be able to properly focus on them.
Now fair enough, this might sound like a lot
of technical babble and complicated camera jargon,
so allow me to simplify it.
Here are the two things that a macro lens does.
Firstly, it increases the magnification
to make your subjects look bigger.
And secondly, it allows you to focus closer to your subject
to make it look bigger.
And at the end of the day, this is what a macro lens does.
It allows you to shoot smaller, more detailed subjects
and make them look huge.
And by the way, now that you understand
how macro lenses work,
let me share some of my best tips for using them.
Number one, macro lenses have outrageously shallow
depths of field.
For instance, I shoot
with the Rokinon 100 mil T3.1 cinema lens
and even when the lens is stopped down,
the plane of the image that is in focus in razor thin.
So what do you do?
Well, this leads to my second tip on using macro lenses.
They require a ton of light.
You're gonna need to stop down your lens
to get a workable focus plane.
And when you do that, you're gonna be letting less light
into your camera's sensor.
So you're gonna need to compensate for that in some way.
You'll probably need more lighting
than you normally do with other lenses.
Finally, the third tip I wanna share with you,
when it comes to shooting macro videos
is to consider your stabilization efforts.
Due to the nature of macro lenses enlarging your subjects,
they are very sensitive to movement
and any shake in your tripod or stabilization tool
of choice will be exacerbated by a macro lens.
So make sure you've got a steady foundation
when shooting macro.
And by now, I hope you have a basic understanding
of how macro lenses and macro videography works
and how to best shoot with that style.
At the end of the day, a macro lens
will allow you to capture a shot
unlike any other lens, which is pretty cool.
That's not all though,
because here's the deal.
If you liked the look of the clips we used
as examples in this video, you need to know
that these clips can be downloaded instantly by you
along with thousands of others
and used royalty-free in any of your creative projects.
It's all part of a platform we've built for you
called Storytape.
Storytape.com
It's a stock footage site that gives you
unlimited access to thousands of cinematic video clips
shot in 4k ProRes.
We add more than a thousand new clips
every single month with graded and ungraded versions
and like I said, there's no download limit,
there's no cap.
Not only that, but all of our clips are shot
in what we call scenes so now you get to be the director,
pull from dozens of different clips
from the same identical scene to craft
the perfect narrative for your story
with clips that all look alike, from the same scene.
And because there's no download limit,
like I said, you can always grab the exact number
of clips you need to create that perfect video.
So go to Storytape.com and check out all that we have
to offer, where finally you can license
unlimited video downloads on a single subscription,
including every single video that you saw
in this tutorial.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you in another video.
(upbeat music)