How to Focus in Macro Photography

one of the most difficult things in macro photography is focusing we all know that 90% of images are going to be blurred in this video I'm going to give you some tips into how to focus in macro photography [Music] the focusing focusing is one of those Bane's in macro photography that is just very hard to do 90% of your images are going to come out blurred but there are some tips and some tools you can use to narrow your focus first time and every time there are various methods of focusing for macro photography depending on your skill level from beginner to expert so the first one I want to talk about is autofocus so I have my Canon 650d here with the yongnuo flash and I'm going to set my stabilizer on because I am untilled and I have the auto focus set to automatic so this is straight out the box automatic okay so we have Bungie is on a little tangerine that I've let go off about three four weeks and it's created a very nice texture and I have one of my background cards you can find those on the website if you want to have a look at that what I'm going to do is I'm just going to go to one to one I'm a magnification and then I'm going to try and take a picture of Bungie weave autofocus okay it's 110 all over the place let's put it back to it 1 2 1 and try again so the autofocus is very difficult it's hunting all over the place so I'm gonna give some tips on how you can tell the autofocus what it's actually looking at the first thing you wanna do is go into your focusing points and you want to select the middle points our what you do in here is you go in hey camera I only look at the center point for focusing ignore everything else that will help narrow down the autofocus to bang on to the spoilers always your thing I'm also going to do is on this particular lens I can limit the distance that the autofocus will hunt and seek so I'm going to turn that to 0.3 meters to 0.5 that limits where the lens can look border focus and of course you can choose any focus points you wish to use now what I'm going to do now is set my magnification again from 1 to 1 that gives the lens and the camera a ballpark figure where to start with and I'm going to put the middle focus point right on all these eyes and then I'm going to let the water focus do its job now the one little finger you are going to face with this setup is when you press the autofocus it's going to lock in the focus but then if your subject or yourself moved it's going to be out of focus to fix that we're going to choose auto focus operation and we're going to go to AI servo what that's going to do it's going to tell the camera to look at the middle point now and keep the middle point in focus no matter whether I move or the spoiler moves so let's take another shot now they can hear their hair the autofocus is continuously searching for that point so if you're uncomfortable with manual focus or any of that you can use auto focus the don't sign of auto focus is as you get closer to the subject the auto focus gets more confused so if you're after more magnification and you unfortunately you may need to turn off your auto focus so if you're struggling with manual focus don't be afraid to use auto focus because no matter what people say in forums and in Facebook groups you can use auto focus if you wish to so if you're a little bit brave you can always turn off the autofocus so I'm going to turn that off now and will keep my stabilizer on and what you want to do now is you set up your camera in a position that you like you're fine on your subject and you're going to move the focusing ring to focus with that one you just got a look at where you want to focus get it as sharp as possible usually you'll go just past where the focusing point is and bring it back and then you can take the picture you go get a lot of practice to see which way the ring turns for focusing in or focusing out it takes a lot of practice and every lens can be different so on the Canon your focus from right to left it will go out whereas on the lower it will focus in so that's just something you have to get used to if you want to do that so manual focus when you first start doing it can be a bit awkward because you don't know which way to turn your focusing ring focusing out or in and of course you can always use back button focus to get the best of both of these methods but once you get used to it you can use that as a method for focusing in macro photography the next method is to set your lens to manual focus but instead of moving the focusing ring on your lens you move the camera back and forward and this method is probably the method you is boy 90% of macro photographers out there now for this shot all I'm going to do is I'm going to look through my viewfinder I'm gonna fly my bungee and then I'm gonna move forward until it's always coming to focus and take a bigger so that one is probably the easiest because all you want to do is simply think to yourself if it's out of focus move forward and it's in focus and then you just rock backwards and forwards with your camera and take the picture this method is great for doing focus stacking as well so you just move forward and take multiple pictures and stack them together I think the moving the camera forward and backward is probably the better way to focus in macro tog Rafi no matter what system you're using let's say your eyesight is not the best in the world and let's face it as we get our order or our site just start to go there are a couple of things in your digital SLR you can use to help with your focusing so although for the video you've heard this little noise that noise is the camera telling me that that particular focus point is focused and is sharp they need to go into your camera sitting there normally out the box this feature is turned on I'm going to show you my 650 date again check your camera's manual for where you find this and we have beep enable will disable and we have touch which I'm never used I keep it enabled what that door is is simply this when we selected that middle focus point that is our folks in point that we want to use we're telling the camera I only look at that focusing point when we move forward as Bungie or your subject comes into focus it's going to flash red and then you're going to hear a beep and when you hear that B just press that shutter button they're not going to now focus every single time but that audible beep and the visual flash of your focusing point or help you know that that is where you are focusing hearing and seeing and those focus points flash em beep can help you greatly in nailing the focus in your macro photography so another method that you can use to help with focusing is love you so when you're going to vote live you essentially it's turning your camera into a mirrorless camera what you can do is you can see on the back of the screen here your setup and you're seeing so then I am able to use the back of the screen to focus when you in this mode you've got a tool that can help you nail your focus every single time so we're going to go into live view now and then we can zoom in again check your camera's manual for how to do this on your particular camera but I can zoom in on bungees eyes and then now your critical focus right on the eye now so long as your subject doesn't move you're good to just take the picture so this is a very bulky slow type of way of being out today because you go have your camera on a tripod it's very hard to do it handheld but it is a way that you can nail your focus every single time using live view and zooming in on that screen the focus peaking is probably the best thing for focusing in macro photography it does us some downsize but the precise out by or of the negatives so I can't show you the focus peaking on here so I'm going to use I'm going to use my field monitor this is the field world monitor and I use this for doing my videos but it also has a focus peaking option so I'm going to show you the back of that rather than the back of my camera to folks bacon gives an overlay on your EVF or the back of the screen that highlights the pixels that are sharp so you can see here in this example I have set and my focus peaking to red and you can see as I'm moving back and forward you can see the red pickles that are getting highlighted this is fantastic I absolutely love the focus peaking so all ago doing there to take a picture Bungie is move the camera forward like we talked about in point three and when he's always a light up with the focus bacon color I can just snap that picture you can see they're easy it is to use focus peaking for manual focus in macro photography now my tea I saw I also have a little box that highlights green whenever it is in focus which is another visual aid you can get now remember when I talked about the live view when you press a button you can zoom in I can do exactly the same on my EOS art when looking through the viewfinder so not only can I check focus peaking if I want to I can also zoom in to see if it's in focus down side and that is when you zoom in you lose the focus peaking which is a bit of a bummer I would have liked to have both of them you know best of both worlds but unfortunately that doesn't happen also focus peaking doesn't work if it's set to autofocus well not on this camera does work with the field monitor but not internally with this camera focus peaking in my opinion is the best method to go with for macro photography seeing your actual pixels highlight in your AV F is fantastic and I can generally nail focusing 80% of the time rather than missing it 80% of the time and adding on the fact with one book or I can zoom in to see where the focusing is is another plus point benevolence cameras so there are six methods for focusing in macro photography which one do you use in your macro photography let me know in the comments below but for now I will leave it there my name is Stuart wood and again I'll see you on the next project I'm a mother first on any bungee let's get started with tip but this barter you go to a lot of practice to get that auto to get that focusing as to which way do you turn the ring and for it to folk it will when your Hey they're not going to hit the they're not going to hit the focusing point every single time but that visual aid of your focusing point flashing and the beep will let you know that it is unfocused now when you're in this know when you're in this mode you have an added now when you in this mode you have an added tool that well I think we have enough there Bungie what we have to do now is get the the b-roll okay

Channel: Stewart Wood

Views: 35,315

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Keywords: How to Focus in Macro Photography, how to focus in photography, how to focus, macro photography, macro photography tips and tricks, macro photography ideas, macro photography ideas at home, macro lens, macro lens photography, macro lenses, photography tips, depth of field, how to, jumping spider pet, macro photography tutorial, focusing tips, focusing methods

Id: QOrlzrnfJfs

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020