Macro photography has definitely become a very broad genre of the art form, thanks to the ability of today’s cameras—from smartphones to professional cameras—to make capturing macro shots as easy as clicking a button or two. However, the results may not always be what you desired.
Before learning to take your macro photography to the next level, let’s talk about what macro photography is and how it is achieved.
What is Macro Photography?
Macro photography is a unique form of photography that involves photographing small objects to make them look life-sized or larger in the photo. The usual subjects include flowers and small insects. It lets us see objects we don’t normally get to see up close with the naked eye. This type of photography is also used for bringing out details in jewelry and other inanimate objects. It is a widely used art form that is incorporated in almost every one of the types of photography. You’ll see it in travel, portraiture, action, or even event photography, both in the film and digital age.
A true macro shot depends on the level of magnification. The ideal magnification is at 1:1, where a 1-inch object is also projected at 1-inch on the camera sensor. When projected at half life-size, the same 1-inch object would take up just a half inch of the sensor and would be at 1:2 magnification. However, true macro is anything that has been magnified at a ratio of 1:1 or higher.
Understanding macro photography terms
“Magnification” and “working distance” are both important terms in macro or close-up photography. But what do these words actually mean, and how do they help you shoot stunning macro shots? Let’s dig a little deeper into each term.
Magnification
Understanding how big or small your subject will look like on your camera sensor is an essential aspect of macro photography. Magnification is the value you get when you compare your subject’s size as seen by the sensor to its actual size. A 1:1 ratio simply means that your subject has reached “life-size” magnification. There’s also “half-life-size” magnification, which refers to 1:2 magnification.
Working distance
Working distance is the distance between the front of your lens and your nearest subject. Six inches (15 cm) is perfect if you want to shoot small subjects. Camera lenses will get the smallest working distance at 1:1 magnification. They can even achieve a larger distance if they have longer focal lengths.
How to take macro photos
Nowadays, both point-and-shoot cameras, mirrorless cameras, and DSLRs have a built-in macro mode that helps users capture significantly closer shots of an object from an observable distance. The camera automatically adjusts lens elements and moves them closer to the sensor to best suit close focusing. It does so without the need for extra lenses or macro tubes. Of course this cannot be considered true macro, because to achieve that you will need a dedicated macro lens. Alternatively, you can get an accessory that will enable your camera or lens to shoot macro.
There’s also an option to “fake” a macro by cropping your photo to make your subject appear more magnified. However, since the digital output from most cameras (except for those with full-frame sensors) are not as large as on film, resorting to such measures will usually result in reduced image quality, which is why cropping does not yield desirable results.
To achieve true macro photography, there is a wide range of macro lenses available for select digital cameras that are optimized for achieving as much as 10x magnification for professional macro images. But even with the right gear, pro macro photography can still be hard to execute without knowing how to properly adjust your camera settings to suit your shooting requirements, or without knowing how to create a more favorable shooting situation before clicking the shutter.
Macro shooting may now seem to be more complicated than you thought it would be, but it really isn’t—especially not after using some of our top tips for capturing the best macro photographs.
Top 15 Tips for Macro Photography
Macro Photography Tip #1: Get a good macro lens
While today’s cameras offer a macro mode in the menu or analog settings, they don’t offer as much as 1:1 magnification. If you want magazine or gallery-quality macro pictures, you’ll need to purchase a dedicated macro lens for your camera. There’s a wide array of macro lenses on the market that offers 1:1 magnification and above for your camera. You might be taken aback by some of their price tags, but they’re definitely worth the investment for greater quality macro shots.
Enthusiasts have a few great options, including extension tubes and reversing lenses. A standard camera lens with extension tubes on it offers some magnification, while a reversed lens and extension tubes deliver greater magnification.
But if you’re new to macro photography, a dedicated lens for your camera is the most convenient and versatile option that you have. A lot of popular macro lenses have focal lengths between 90 to 105mm and 1:1 magnification. Other lenses feature shorter focal lengths with shorter working distances. So they might need you to come closer to your subject as you shoot.
Bonus tip: If you plan on shooting flat objects such as coins, stamps, use a “flat-field” macro lens to ensure edge-to-edge sharpness.
Macro Photography Tip #2: Choose a suitable subject
Contrary to popular belief, not everything will make for a good macro subject. There are certain subjects that are indiscernible when viewed close up and without context—and if your viewer can’t understand what they’re looking at when they see your macro shot, how can they appreciate it? But of course, this is all a question of preference and aesthetics. If the subject you photographed appears confusing in macro but is still aesthetically pleasing to the eyes, then it definitely qualifies as a suitable subject.
Common subjects include small insects, butterflies, rain drops, and small objects such as miniature dolls, jewelry, and household items. Inanimate objects are fairly easy to photograph as they don’t move, but insects and bugs can be a lot more challenging. One key tip for photographing them is to shoot from a safe distance to avoid scaring them off.
Macro Photography Tip #3: Pick the best location and weather
Small bugs and insects are among the most interesting subjects in macro lens photography, as well as flowers and plants. Locations that have plenty of flowers and plants will give you many opportunities for macro shots. As for bugs and insects, these creatures are more active in warm outdoor temperatures. This means you should go out and shoot them at around 62°F (17°C) or warmer.
It’s also great to capture insects in colder weather since they stay still in their habitat. A few macro enthusiasts travel to certain places early in the morning during summer so they can see and capture sleeping insects. You’ll also get softer light with overcast weather, making it a much better climate than sunny conditions to capture macro images.
Also, learn bug behavior. There are bugs that fly away when you come close to them, adapt to your presence within a few minutes, or completely ignore you. Shooting plenty of macro images is great for learning bug behavior: You’ll easily predict your subject’s next move when you do.
When photographing extremely thin objects like flowers or leaves, bright sunlight can be a difficult aspect to combat, as it can “burn” through your subject and cause hot spots, or parts of your image to be overexposed. Try shooting during cloudy days, utilizing shade, or creating shade as needed.
Macro Photography Tip #4: Get stable with a tripod
You can control composition and eliminate the variable of a moving camera very simply: don’t move it. Put it on a tripod, a bean bag, or a mini-pod so it goes nowhere.
Whether you choose to shoot with a tripod, a monopod, or simply are careful to position yourself in an “anchored” position, you should be conscious to steady your camera when shooting extremely close-up. The smallest unintentional shifts in framing can change an entire shot.
Macro Photography Tip #5: Use a longer focal length for living subjects
Speaking of lenses, you may want to go for those that offer longer focal lengths, depending on your subject of choice. This allows you to “digitally” move in closer (without actually having to move closer) when photographing insects and objects close-up without disturbing them or disrupting their natural environment. The best focal length for these types of situations should be anything above 90mm, such as the Tokina atx-i 100mm F/2.8 FF Macro Lens.
Macro Photography Tip #6: Incorporate assistive accessories
Even without a dedicated macro lens, you can achieve good macro shots with assistive accessories that can be incorporated into your macro kit. There’s what they call a diopter, which is also known as the “poor man’s macro lens.” It’s basically close-up filter or magnifying glass that is screwed on to your regular lens or to any bridge or compact camera to achieve macro magnification without having to purchase a true macro lens.
Bellows or tubes are the accordion-like, expandable part of a camera that helps achieve ultra-tight close ups on your subject. You can also get lens adapters that allow you to reverse your lens and manually control the aperture.
Instead of using a tripod, which can be quite restrictive for the photographer, you can use “third hand” devices (anything you can create or devise with the available tools you have to create a literal “third hand”) for holding and supporting your subjects steadily and against your desired background.
Macro Photography Tip #7: Customize your background
Shooting inanimate objects is fairly easy as you can have complete control over the positioning, lighting, and even your background. Simply place it against your desired background, depending on your composition, and make sure they don’t clash with each other. Many photographers prefer to keep it simple by positioning their subject in front of a contrasting background that’s located farther away from the subject, so it comes off as a beautiful background blur.
If you’re spontaneously shooting outdoors, you may not have that much control over your background. However, you can change your perspective or maybe use that “third hand” support for positioning your object, such as a leaf or flower, to face you from another angle.
Remember that the eye naturally goes to the brightest spot in a photo, so if you are shooting in mixed light, be aware of what’s in the background. You may need to change your point of view, get closer and fill the frame with your subject, or bring a sheet of plain paper or an 8×10-inch print of generic, highlight-free foliage to hold behind your subject. You can also control background clutter by shooting at wider apertures, which reduces background focus, or using a ring light, which throws most backgrounds into darkness.
Macro Photography Tip #8: Pay attention to your depth of field
Most people will advise you to use smaller apertures (a larger f-stop number) as this helps increase your depth of field and ensure that the important parts of your subject are in sharp focus. However, the problem with using a smaller aperture is that the reduced and diffracted light can greatly affect the sharpness of your image. On the other hand, if you use too large of an aperture, you end up with less depth of field. This means that some parts of your subject may end up blurred out as well.
One of the hardest parts in doing macro photography is achieving the right balance between desired sharpness and depth of field. If you are able to shoot from a perspective or angle that allows you to fit the most important or interesting parts of your subject on a single plane of focus, which ensures that your subject remains sharp while still maintaining beautiful background bokeh, then it’s all a matter of finding the largest aperture that will allow you to do that without leaving your subject blurred out in certain parts.
Potential fix: Crop your image
Or if you don’t mind cropping your image, you can also decrease your magnification and use a smaller aperture to ensure that all parts of your subject are sharp, then simply crop the photo to make your subject appear more magnified. However, a challenge in using smaller apertures is that it restricts more light from coming into the lens, which means you’ll often need slower shutter speeds to be able to properly expose your shot. Depending on the photographer, the solution can be using a tripod for a steadier shot or using flash to add more light to the scene.
Potential fix: Try focus stacking
Another recommended solution to the problem of balancing depth of field and sharpness is focus stacking, which is a built-in feature in a select number of cameras. If you don’t have this feature, it can also be accomplished in Photoshop.
Macro Photography Tip #9: Go manual
While the automatic features in today’s cameras often take the guesswork out of photography, when it comes to focusing on close-ups, you’d be better off using the manual override. That’s because the autofocus feature works best when there’s a clear area for the lens to lock in on. But that’s usually not the case when we shoot close-ups with our macro lens. In fact, your lens will go bananas trying to find something to lock in on. By working with manual focus, you can decide what you want to focus on and lock into it when you are satisfied with what you see through your lens.
Be especially careful when the element you are focusing on is at the center of your image. Remember that with a narrow depth of field, everything toward the edges of the frame will tend to be out of focus. If you have a bright, blurred area at the lower edge closest to your lens, it could dominate your composition and draw the viewer’s eye away from your actual focal point. If you see a bright area along the lower edge, recompose or focus on something in the bright area and create a composition around that.
Macro Photography Tip #10: Create better lighting
A key component in photography is light, and macro photographers obviously greatly benefit from having good lighting conditions. Aside from using it to artistically improve your shots, you can add light to support your exposure settings. You can do this when the subject is still too dark despite having a wide open aperture.
Many macro photographers would advise beginners to use a ring flash to enable the use of smaller apertures, as well as faster shutter speeds for handheld shooting and moving objects. Ring flashes or twin flashes offer good 3D lighting that is not as flat as built-in pop-up flashes.
Macro photography makes capturing enough light rather challenging. Maybe it’s because you’re using high levels of magnification. Or perhaps it’s because the close focus on your camera magnifies motion blur and blur from camera shake. Alternatively, you’re blocking more natural light when you come closer to your subject. Using flash can help you solve any of these issues. Flash fills in your preferred amount of light and quickly freezes motion.
But camera flashes can also give you harsh lighting and glaring specular reflections when you use them for macro shots. A diffuser will prove useful in these situations. It lets you extend the flash area and produce a much softer light.
Macro Photography Tip #11: Improve your in-camera composition
Whether you’re shooting macro or any other photography style, a photographer should learn how to improve their composition in-camera. This means properly framing your subject before clicking the shutter instead of relying on post-processing to correct your composition. This can be quite crucial for macro photography, as cropping your shots decreases the photo resolution.
Instead of cropping a photo of an insect to make it look larger, increase your subject magnification while shooting so you get to keep your original resolution.
Macro Photography Tip #12: Plan your point of focus
You have your shot ready, and all you’ll need to do is focus on your subject and click the shutter. But before you do, it helps to realize that in macro photography, your point of focus can greatly improve your composition.
One thing that can help you take better macro photos is to learn how to focus on different parts of the frame manually. Try to change your focus to provide different and interesting perspectives.
Macro Photography Tip #13: Change Your Angle
Macro photography newbies usually capture their subject from their current position and stand towards it at 45°. Your photos will look boring if you make the same mistake, so finding unique angles is key. Try capturing your subject from the side, the front, or below. You can also get a more intriguing angle and a more stunning background when you pull up the plant or leaf that your subject is resting on.
Macro Photography Tip #14: Add in elements
Photographing dew drops on a plant or raindrops on a window can make for some striking macro shots. But you don’t always have to wait for rain or dew. You can also use a simple spray bottle and delicately add drops to your subject, to bring out more visual interest in your image.
Macro Photography Tip #15: Be patient
Macro photography can be a very rewarding style of photography, despite it being somewhat complicated for many beginners. While there are a lot of things to remember in order to achieve a good professional macro shot, practice helps make it a habit. Once you get used to it, it becomes a skill and you’d be well on your way to improving your shots with every click of the shutter.
Be bold in your composition, look for stunning color, and don’t be afraid to experiment and create abstractions. The greatest benefit of macro is how it transforms mundane subjects into worlds of wonder by enlarging them far beyond what the human eye is used to seeing. Pump up your digital camera’s color and contrast settings if that suits the subject. With a film cam, use super-saturated film.
Once you’ve eliminated the variables, it’s time to have fun. Keep shooting, and don’t be afraid to experiment. Shoot closer, and closer still. The closer you get, the more will be revealed for your waiting camera. Enjoy exploring and photographing the tiny worlds that await you!
Editing Macro Photography Images
The ability to fix your photos later in Adobe Photoshop shouldn’t mean that you can afford to be careless with the photos you take. It does mean that you can make up for problems you could not solve with your camera and. It also lets you shape and tweak your image until it becomes the aesthetic product you want to create.
Crop your image
Cropping is invaluable, especially for close-ups. You can’t always get as close to your subject as you’d like. Just define the area of the image that interests you most and resize it so it fills the frame. Finally, cropping lets you fine-tune your composition. In close-up work, you often can’t get the best composition during the shoot. You may have no choice but to include some distracting background elements. Afterward, you can play with your framing and refine your composition on your computer. A little creative cropping can erase or minimize unwanted background features and help direct the viewer to the area of the image that is most important or interesting.
Adjust colors
Close-ups, more than other kinds of photographs, pick up and reflect the colors of their surroundings. If you find that your color is not quite right, use the color balance control or the white balance tool in your software to recreate the color you saw. Both work with sliders so you see the color changes and can play with them until you are satisfied.
Alter exposure
It’s often difficult to get the best exposure in close-ups because you are working at close range and can’t always compensate for lighting deficiencies by adding light. Luckily, you can rescue otherwise fine images which need an exposure fix. For example, if your subject is darker or less vibrant than you would like, you can simulate fill light by using your fill slider. Or you can tone down an overly-bright image using the exposure or recovery slider. See Diane Miller’s article Virtual Fill Flash for more on this technique.
Fine-tune contrast
To add contrast, use the contrast slider or black slider for the effect you want. Experiment with your black slider to achieve a contrast level that will set your subject off from the background. The clarity slider can also be used to increase contrast by adding a slight “pop” to your image.
Sharpen your image
Even if you do everything possible to get a sharp, in-focus image when you shoot (see our previous article), you will still generally need to sharpen your images as part of the after-capture process. That’s because digital images are structured with pixels that have been altered during exposure so they appear to blur.
Macro Photography: Frequently Asked Questions
Is Macro Photography Hard?
Macro photography is equally hard as other photographic genres. But it may require more patience, an eye for details, a steadier hand, and more precision. It may also require dedicated gear and more preparation and planning.
Furthermore, this is a type of photography that doesn’t allow mistakes. You need to create clear, sharp images that focus on the right spot. Composition rules are essential when you work with such small subjects.
But if you love macro photography, none of these will seem difficult. If attention to detail is your strength, you will enjoy looking for tiny subjects or arranging the perfect scene. The world is full of little wonders you can’t wait to reveal.
Can I Use a Telephoto Lens for Macro Photography?
Because telephoto lenses offer a near-macro magnification, you can use them for macro photography even though they don’t offer true macro magnification, which requires a 1:1 magnification ratio.
The magnification may be increased by mounting a telephoto lens on a body with a smaller sensor. But compared with dedicated macro lenses, they do have some disadvantages. Telephoto lenses offer smaller apertures, increased camera shake risk, and longer minimum focus distance.
What Is the Difference between Macro and Micro Photography?
The main difference between macro and micro photography is the magnification factor. In macro photography, the magnification ratio is between 1:1 and 10:1. In micro photography, the magnification ratio is between 10:1 and 20:1. While macro photos capture life-size objects, micro photos capture almost microscopic features.
Another difference is the purpose of the photographs. Macro photos aim to reveal the unseen world to a large audience and focus on beauty and storytelling. Micro photos have a more scientific purpose and aim to gather information rather than reveal beauty.
