Macro photography

The term 'Macro photography' tends to be applied to taking images of objects from close-up Real macro photography is where you are working around 1:1 ratio and closer thereby giving an image on film that is equal in size or larger than the subject being photographed. To define even more strictly, from 1:1 up to ten times enlargement on film (10:1) is the standard range for macro photography.

Taking macro shots is quite difficult and taking good macro shots requires a lot of skills and specialised equipment. Nowadays good quality digital cameras have special settings for taking Macro shots and if you use that setting you can get a professional looking macro photograph easily. Macro lenses are available for SLR cameras traditionally 50mm, 100mm and more recently 180mm the difference being the reduced distance at which the lens will focus.

Lighting for a macro photograph is very important and will give the picture a lot of charm if you get creative with it. With a depth of field of around one millimeter for precise macro work, camera positioning and focus become critical. If you have a good tripod and head, you'll find that you have at least 10 controls to adjust. Each of them will move the camera. None of them will move the camera along the axis that you care about.

There are specialised equipment like the macro focusing rails. These are little racks and pinions capable of moving the entire camera/lens assembly forward and back.

Macro photography of any kind can be expensive. While a skilful artist can make fantastic general photographs using as little as a home-made pinhole camera, the unfortunate fact is that macro photography requires a certain amount of equipment to achieve sufficient magnification beyond the abilities of a basic photography set-up but recent advances in the quality of lenses has reduced the price to a much more affordable level. 

Back