Indoor macro photography ideas how to#
Indoor macro photography ideas pro#
Indoor macro photography ideas software#

But for learning how to process the images using Photoshop, I strongly recommend you watch this awesome video, presented by the incomparable Aaron Nace of Phlearn. There are several good videos on YouTube that can walk you through the process of setting up your camera and capturing the shots. I recommend you get your feet wet by photographing something simple with loads of clear, sharp edges, like a screw or the spring from a ballpoint pen, until you get the hang of it. You will quickly figure out both your lighting preferences (flash, continuous, neither, or both) and how many individual pictures to take (the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field, and the greater number of “slices” to get everything sharp). From there, it is all about practicing and experimenting. It would probably take about one afternoon to learn the steps for positioning and lighting your subject, capturing the images, and processing them using stacking software. You can easily see how every detail of the wasp is in sharp focus, from front to back. The image of the mud dauber wasp, on the right, is the result of combining about 40 individual photographs, each at a slightly different focal length, and deploying a focus stacking program (in this case, I used a proprietary program called Zerene Stacker, but a similar result could have been obtained using the focus stacking functionality included in Photoshop). Making use of the shallow depth of field to draw the viewer’s eyes to those of the spider is a perfectly acceptable technique and indispensable when shooting moving bugs. This aperture results in a very shallow depth of field, and you can see how out-of-focus most of the image is.

Indoor macro photography ideas software#

But in a nutshell, focus stacking involves capturing a sequential series of images, all at different focal distances, and then using a software tool to combine all the parts that are in focus into a single photograph that is pin-sharp throughout the shot.įor example, the jumping spider on the left was photographed out in the field using a wide aperture of f/4.

I have already addressed how to get amazing extreme macro results on a tight budget in other posts (which you can find here, and here) so I won’t get into the details here. You certainly can spend a small fortune on focus-stacking equipment, but you can also do a bang-up job with the tripod you already have, a shutter-release cable, and a $10 focus rail. It is not complicated and the technical part is less of a challenge than operating your DSLR. It looks complicated and technical, and obviously costs an arm and a leg for all that specialized gear.

So when the weather outside is frightful, just pick an activity from the list, one that sounds interesting to you, and jump in. By using it with the rubber hood, you can focus on the subject that is close to your lens and avoid reflections from the glass.ġ4.These macro-activities aren’t presented in any particular order and there is no particular order in which they should be done. If you don’t want to purchase a macro lens, consider using the Macro Extension Tube. Thus, it doesn’t matter how close the fish is to the other side of the aquarium, as you will be able to take clear aquarium photographs and implement the best macro photography ideas. With a 35mm lens, you can focus approximately 2 inches from the front of the lens.

Indoor macro photography ideas pro#

You can also use the Tokina 35mm f/2.8 AT-X PRO DX Macro Lens, which is perfect for a DX body as it has a smaller 16x24mm image sensor. The Canon EF-S 35mm f/2.8 macro lens has an almost ideal field of view for an FX body as has a 24x36mm image sensor. Get the fastest lens you can afford (minimum f/2.8).Īlso, a lens must allow you to see fish clearly. However, such lenses are rather expensive for beginning photographers. This way, you can focus a lens when an animal swims close by. If the focusing distance is small, you need have to use macro lenses. It is quite difficult to take pictures of the deeper areas of the aquarium tank.