"Macro" Photography - by Rich Poitras

Just about everyone likes to shoot close-up photos. While macro photography frequently involves making the image in the camera bigger than life, today we often think in terms of how close you are to the subject when you shoot. Sure, a purest might require a macro lens to produce a macro photograph, but most of us are happy if we can get really close or make it look like we are really close. For example, this flower photo was shot with a 10.5 mm fisheye lens that was positioned inside the petals of the flower.  All you really need for this kind of macro photography is a camera/lens combination that will let you get a big image on your sensor/film. While a decent macro lens may be out of reach of your budget, there are other possibilities to get closer to your subject and get those "bigger-than-life images".

One inexpensive tool is to use close-up lenses in front of your normal lens. The photo on the left below was shot with an 18-70 mm zoom lens, at maximum zoom. The photo on the right was shot with the same lens and a +10 close-up lens (click on the photos to see fullsize image). The close-up lens set used for the above photo is a very cheap set.  I got the four close-up lenses and three other filters for around $20. It came with +1, +2, +4, +10 close-up lenses plus polarizing, UV and fluorescent filters.

If you're not using a camera with interchangeable lenses, many point-and-shoot cameras come with a macro setting and can get very close to the subject.  The shot below left is with a Nikon Coolpix 5000 (ancient by today's standards) with the macro focusing turned on. This camera can get to within an inch of the subject as shown on the right.  As you can see, even the simpler cameras today can shoot a variety of quality photographs! If you looked at the full-size images of these photos, you've seen how the depth of field decreases as you move in.  If you have control of the f-stop on your camera, use the smallest f-stop (largest f-number, like f-22) you have to increase the depth of field. In many cases, you'll want a shallow depth of field, in which case use a larger f-stop (smaller number, like f-5.6). Even using the smallest f-stop is not going to provide an extreme range of focus.  That's just the nature of close-up photography.