When I'm out there doing close-up photography and macro photography, I would rather not
be thinking constantly about my camera settings, just because the subject already demands a
lot of attention.
So, what I've done is come up with this list of settings that I basically use by default.
It's not exactly "set it and forget it," because occasionally you'll have to make some modifications.
But I figured that I'd share those with you today.
I know that a lot of the people who watch this channel are also big into macro photography.
So, let's get into it.
These are the close-up and macro photography settings that I recommend, at least for your
defaults, every single time.
Now, this is really important.
Throughout this video, I'm going to be assuming that you're shooting handheld, or that your
subject is moving.
Because if your subject isn't moving, and you're shooting from a tripod, you can basically
use any camera settings that you want.
You don't have to worry about motion blur.
And then you could even use techniques like focus stacking to extend your depth of field
as much as you want.
When you're shooting handheld, or when your subject is moving, these techniques just aren't
practical, if they're even possible at all.
So, let's start with the best camera settings for general close-up photography.
This isn't the extreme magnifications just yet.
In fact, you can do this general close-up photography with almost any lens and camera
out there, even a kit lens or a 50mm prime.
The only really difficult thing is that the closer that you focus, the shallower your
depth of field becomes - and, even more importantly, the more that you're going to magnify camera
shake.
So, you do have to be a little bit more careful about the aperture, and especially the shutter
speed, that you pick.
Here's what I recommend.
First, turn your camera to Aperture Priority mode.
It'll look like this - either "A" or "Av" on the mode dial.
Once you've done that, set your aperture to whatever value gives you the right depth of
field.
Personally, I like the range from about f/2.8 to maybe f/5.6 so that I can get that nice
and blurry background.
And, at this point, you might be tempted to set your ISO to the base value, like base
ISO 100.
But the problem there is that your camera might automatically start choosing shutter
speeds that are way too long.
You might get these very blurry photos, completely ruining your perfect shot, just because your
ISO was too low.
If you could somehow limit the camera to only use fast shutter speeds, and then just raise
ISO if it needs to, that would be a much better option.
And the good news is, that actually exists.
It's called Auto ISO.
If you haven't used it before, pull that up in the camera menu, and you'll see some options
that look like this.
The important one is to go down to this section that says minimum shutter speed, because this
is the shutter speed that you can set as a limit, so that your camera never goes past
it.
Personally, I set 1/320th of a second for close-up photography.
And, to complement that, I'm going to set my maximum ISO value to 3200.
And at this point, I know that my camera is going to stick to that range from 1/320th
of a second and faster.
I'm going to get sharp photos without motion blur, but I'm still going to capture as much
light as I can.
And, of course, you can change these Auto ISO settings if you want.
They're not completely set in stone; this is just what I prefer.
But if you're not that familiar with how Auto ISO works in Aperture Priority mode, those
are the settings that I recommend, and they will give you really sharp results.
Now, you still might not have the perfect exposure.
It might be a little bit too dark or too bright.
But that's really easy to change with exposure compensation.
Just dial in whatever you want, and it won't mess with that limit of 1/320th of a second.
And then we've got focusing.
My recommendation for close-up photography is to use continuous servo autofocus.
On some cameras, this might be called AF-C. And this is going to autofocus continually
as you half-press the shutter button, or you hold down the AF-On button on your camera.
And at that point, all that you have to do is put the focusing box over your subject,
continually autofocus by pressing down that button, and then take the photo.
And if you're still not totally convinced that you're getting sharp images, what you
might want to do is enable the burst mode on your camera, so that your camera is taking
pictures at a high number of frames per second.
That way, if the focus goes in and out, you're just going to be absolutely certain that you've
pinpointed the right spot on your subject.
Whoa there, champ, slow down, or you're going to take all the good photos from the rest
of us!
Now, the last thing that I'll say before I move on to extreme macro photography is that
you might want to use a flash, in combination with a diffuser, so you can just soften some
of the shadows on your subject.
This is the lighting setup that I tend to like for close-up photography.
You can see right here the difference between a photo taken without a flash and then with
a fill flash.
I just like the colors a lot more the second time.
And, it's not the end of the world if you don't have one of these setups.
You can still take really good close-up photos.
But if you happen to have a flash, bring it along, and I think you'll like the results.
Now let's move on to the slightly more complicated topic of high magnification macro photography.
So, for high magnification macro photography, if it's really bright when you're taking pictures,
you could actually use the same settings as earlier.
But the problem that you're going to run into, is depth of field.
You can see these photos don't have a lot of depth of field.
And I took these at f/8.
Normally, f/8 has a lot of depth of field.
So, clearly, the closer you focus, the more and more of a problem this can be.
And it's not like this always looks bad.
I have taken a couple photos like this, which I like, even though it has a super shallow
depth of field.
But if you want more detail on your subject, you pretty much need to use apertures like
f/16 to f/22.
Although, before you just set those values, I do recommend testing them with your camera.
Because, depending on the camera that you use, even those might not be a good idea.
For example, on a Micro Four Thirds camera, you're just going to get way too much diffraction
at f/16 or f/22, and it's actually better to use f/8 to f/11 instead.
So, definitely keep this in mind, but don't worry about the math too much.
Because all you really need to do is take some test photos with your own camera, and
just see whatever apertures you like the most, when you're focused around 1:1 magnification.
Now, the important constant about those apertures is that they let in almost no light.
So, basically, your photos are going to be super dark.
And that's why I've kept the flash attached.
At macro distances like this, you have to light the entire photo by flash.
Otherwise, it's just not going to capture enough light.
Either you'll end up with a photo that's massively underexposed, or you'll have to use an ISO
like 12800.
Not a good idea.
Use a flash instead, and definitely pick up a diffuser - or just make one of your own
- so you can soften up the light from that flash.
And, at this point, the camera settings aren't actually that hard.
You're going to want to make sure that you're in manual mode, though.
And then set your shutter speed to the flash sync speed on your camera.
That's usually 1/200th or 1/250th of a second.
And, at that point, turn on your flash, and put it to manual mode.
Set your flash manually to 1/4th power.
You don't want to go too much beyond that, because it'll just kill your flash battery
really quickly.
And then take some test photos.
If they're coming out too dark, raise your ISO.
If they're too bright, then lower your ISO.
Personally, I usually end up with an ISO about 400.
But that's pretty much it.
And there you go.
Now, the next topic is focusing, and focusing is super difficult when you're doing high
magnification macro photography - especially if you're shooting handheld, because your
camera's autofocus system simply cannot keep up.
Things are just moving too dramatically, even if your handholding technique is absolutely
perfect.
Just look at how shallow the depth of field is right here, and you can see how difficult
this task can be.
Now, the method that I recommend is to actually use manual focus rather than autofocus.
And I don't mean trying to hold the camera out and perfectly fine-tune manual focus,
because that's just as difficult - if not more so - than using autofocus.
Instead, what you've got to do is set your lens manually to something like 1:1 magnification,
and then don't change the focusing ring.
You're going to keep it at that 1:1 magnification, and then slowly rock yourself forward and
backward, with the subject in front of you, and then take the photo when you think that
that subject is sharp.
And I would say this technique gives you perfectly sharp photos 30 to 40% of the time.
So, you're probably still going to end up with more photos that are blurry than sharp.
But I don't know of any other technique that works better than this.
It certainly beats trying to autofocus when you're at such an extreme magnification.
And then I'd also say that it's really important when you're post-processing these photos to
watch out for little dust specks that might appear in the image.
When you're taking pictures at super small apertures like f/16 and f/22, you're going
to see way more of these than normal, so you definitely need to get rid of them in post-production.
Now, if you found this video useful, or you learned something about macro photography,
drop me a comment below!
And the same goes if you've got any questions.
I'm going to try to respond to every single question on this video, so don't be shy.
Thanks for watching.
My name is Spencer Cox.
And I'll catch you next time.