My 8 Essential Macro Photography Tips for Nature Photographers

so good morning everybody once again it's a beautiful spring morning absolutely gorgeous the Suns been up about half an hour now great it's singing in the trees above so I've come back to my little footpath my old farm track you can see behind me and I've got it all to myself as usual it's about three or four hundred meters long this track and there's a lot of old woodland vegetation along the margins and there's new plants coming up all the time this one here is the hemlock water dropwort it likes to be in damp shady ditches and then in the next couple of weeks I'll probably be looking at that with a potential sorry with the potentials to take a new image with micro lens which brings me on to this week's video I've decided to do an in the field video but a little bit more home almost desk best if you like I want to look back at some of my old images and try and provide you with some advice as to how best you can get macro images yourself whether you're using a dedicated macro lens extension tubes or a close-up filter now I've got eight of these secrets as I like to call them to pass over to you so let's get on with the first one right now so number one is going to be how you support the camera when you're taking your macro images and there's lots of tripods on the market and in the last two videos at least you've seen me using my get saw standard tripod with a normal ball and socket head on the top you've also seen that I've used a beanbag to rest the camera on for those occasions where I don't actually want to carry a tripod now I wanted to show you this today you've never seen me use this in the field this is my Old Faithful this is a uni LOC tripod Benbow minds have heard of do a similar tripod and this is the largest of the range there's a bamboo mat one and this is the uni lock I'm not even sure it's that long since I've used it which version it is but they basically do - they do this one and they do a smaller traveller version they the beauty of these when you're doing macro work is that you've got the option if you want it to be able to move the camera in and out of your subject matter now with a conventional tripod you have to physically pick it up and move it in and out and the problem with that is is that there's lots and lots of situations that all rise when you want to move in and out work your tripod legs are just going to damage the vegetation or worse still if you're photographing maybe an insect or butterfly or a dragonfly on something that's just sitting nice and peacefully if you move the tripod in and you knock something that's that's linked to the stem that the the subjects resting on you're going to knock it and it's going to fly away so one of these if you want to do a lot of macro work are really really worth the weight in gold they are really quite heavy to carry but turn but like I said for macro work they're just invaluable you can get sliding rails which attach to a conventional tripod and you can use those as well but to my mind that's just carrying an extra piece of kit I like to come back with one tripod and one tripod only so that's that the base is covered in terms of how to support your camera when you're doing macro work like this really useful to have so the bemble matte one and uni lock is the other one I'll put links and the description below so my number two literally flies in the face of my number one and that's to go hands-free using a tripod is fantastic it gives you a great base to work from and you know exactly what you're going to get when you press that shutter button but going hands-free can often be really surprising then the results can be wonderful believe me now if you can't afford a tripod or you saving up for a tripod this method is certainly for you and you'll not be disappointed with the results there are a couple of things you need to bear in mind and that's shutter speeds and subject matter shake when you're doing this method because everything really is working against your words with a tripod you've got at least a 50% of that your your movement under control so I would recommend that you use your elbows and get them right into your stomach and literally move in and out looking at the subject matter using your body as that sliding rail and it really is a nice comfortable bears to work from and similarly if you're on the floor you can just rest your elbows on the ground and just rock backwards and forwards nope because the subject matters checking around often they're on these big long stems and they're often difficult to keep still there's there's all sorts of tools you can use you can use little clamps to hold them steady while you take in the pictures I tend not to use those I prefer to just up the ice already and on the camera and work with a relatively wide aperture to throw all the background out of focus and that usually suits me just fine the general rule of thumb to remember went went and holding is that you really need to have a shutter speed that's at least as fast as the length of the lens you using so in this instance I've got a 120 mm macro lens on so I need to make sure that my shutter speeds are at least a hundred and twentieth of a second to make sure I get those next you have images but the results using this method into focus they're often really quiet only so let's look at number three so my number three when I'm not being interrupted by the golfing she's singing in the trees is to go in as close as you possibly can do now this will give you an entirely different view to the whole world and when I say going close I don't just mean putting a macro lens on understanding five feet away and using it that way I mean get in writing amongst the vegetation if you've got the extension tubes and close-up filters stick those on as well but just get in as close as you can you'll see the world in an entirely different way and what's surprising about using this method of getting them right in those that there's often bugs and little things that are just sitting on the undersides of plants that you just don't see with your naked eye so it really is a revealing method is just to get in there as close as you can if you don't have a dedicated macro lens then certainly the extension tubes and the cloths or filters stack them on and just get in for as close as you can but certainly don't stun right back and just try and photograph the macro from a distance because it really defeats the object you've got to get right in there so my number four is literally to get down on the floor get as low as you possibly can I very often come out in a pair of waterproof trousers because I know I'm just gonna get wet and they're probably muddy using this method but getting down law is a real good way to see the whole world again from a new perspective this method actually works well with a range of lenses not just macro I particularly use it with macro when the subject matter is really quite small but the point is to get the plant or whatever it is you're photographing to be elevated from its surroundings but even the 500 mil lens will work this with this method 70 to 200 just about any lens that support you standard 50mm this will work and the point of the exercises is to get as long as you can and use the for growing vegetation shoots of the grasses the short cut grasses even better if you can find them these are a little bit level to be fer and by shooting through those very very lost the ground you create a note of focus of soft bears to the image so that when you're your ramp your lens is trend on the plant in the distance the point of focus that's all nice a sharp but anything in front of and behind the subject matter looks beautifully soft and out-of-focus and you can really be creative with this if you've got you on the grass you can get nice speckles and better catching the light and it really really does make for a lovely simple ethereal image of some very very ordinary subjects in many cases so get as long as you can this is when the beanbag can come in handy but in terms of bracing yourself if you haven't got a beanbag in your tripod walk well low enough you can just use your elbows and like I say just shoot through the grass from the vegetation or even a little rise in the ground can also work but getting as low as you can and making sure you've got something between you and the subject matter to create that nice soft out-of-focus base but a very effective method that works with a range of lenses so my next two points are quite related I generally find when I'm running workshops or if I'm maybe doing my photography on-demand sessions with people online I find that when we talk about the subjects of macro people generally find that they can't put together the image or they can't see the image but ultimately the rules of composition still apply with macro and my number 5 relates to dynamic lines now this image here of the common frog jumping into the water has got dynamic lines believe it or not and if you look at the front right hand claw that's the start of the lead-in to the image and the line of the body as it moves upwards towards the back legs the back leg on the left-hand side that's entering the water creating the splash that's the end of the line so you've got through the frame you've got this very very strong interest in line in the form of the frog's body moving on to the second image a typical horse chestnut leaf turning into autumn color on the left-hand side of the frame the leaflet that comes out from the center creates the lead-in to the image and that takes your lion to the center of the leaf and Beyond but ultimately with this particular shot is that you've got lots of dynamic lines you've not just got the strong diagonal one from left to right you've got dynamic lines on the right hand side leaflet moving to the centre as well and the whole leaf the whole leaflet arrangements has got lots of lines taking you out of the frame at the back side moving on to the third shot of just a simple Bracken front this was interesting because typically in autumn time Bracken turns from green to brown and this particular frame was interesting in that you had the green on the right-hand side and look at the colors turning on the left-hand side so that in itself made for an interesting composition but this shot is full of dynamic lines you've got the main rib of the Bracken frond running from the bottom left up to the top right but you've also got all the lines of the individual leaflets running out from that central rib now moving on from that the rules of thirds still apply with macro and on this next shot of this lovely Marsh horse tail that I took many many videos ago you can actually see I'll put a link above for that video when I took this particular shots you've got the the stems of the marsh horse tail coming up from the bottom but it's a group of three so you've got the images is setting to the grid line of the composition they're granted the central a central stem doesn't fit into the grid line but certainly the two on the right and the left hit that third segment of the rules of composition of the rules of thirds but because we've got that central one we've also got symmetrical composition in this image so certainly work with the rules of thirds and symmetry moving on to the second shot which is one of my more recent ones which is the red Campion which I took I think two videos ago now I've put the men stem of the Campion head off to the right so it's sitting nicely on that third grid line and I've got the two out-of-focus possibly three out-of-focus flowers in the background that are sitting on the third grid line at the top and just to make things a little bit more comfortable I did leave that grass stem in coming up from the bottom I could have cloned that out but I just felt that that was helping to fill that empty space and sit on the left-hand third grid line lastly I'm going to show you an image that I took many many years ago and this was using high-speed flash when I was working with insects in flight and this is entirely a completely a setup image but it illustrates the point that the strawberry the top of the strawberry is sat on that bottom third part of the frame and you've got the wasp coming in from the left hand side just sat nicely again on that left-hander grid line so now last but certainly by no means least we come on to number eight which is backlighting so when you've got all the other elements that are discussed today nailed you can start getting creative with your lighting efforts and that backlighting is really really a wonderful tool when it comes to macro photography when you look at this image here this is a booklet fern just unfurl in an old woodland you can see that the backlighting has really beautifully picked up those fresh green leaves as they're unfurl in from the fern fronds you've also got the light that's bleeding into the grasses at the base of the image and because I've set the ferns against a nice dark background some distance away it's really helping to highlight the edges of the fern stems as the growing out of the ground now this next one was a beautiful beautiful shots and I really really like this it's very I'm very very fond of it this is an image of a simple crocus and it's just growing in some deep vegetation which I've used one of the other techniques to focus through the vegetation but crucially I've got the light coming in from behind and it really has give the crocus petals the illusion that they're being lit from within I've used some of the other techniques again here that I've discussed which is the autofocus background to give the colours and detail in the distance but ultimately what I'm trying to illustrate here is that the way that the the the crocks is just glowing like a little lantern such at the base of the picture backlighting here has been used to great effect this last image here of horse chestnut leaves really interesting this one take and obviously in the autumn time and the light was just coming through the canopy and catching all the leaves making them glow this beautiful golden glow now I've arranged the composition quite tightly just to focus on the two main leaves there but I've made sure that in doing this that none of the the highlights that are coming through the canopy were work causing distractions on the image but the nice soft golden light just bleeding through the leaves in autumn time really for a wonderful wonderful backlit shot [Music] so bringing that all together the eight points that I've discussed I often try where possible to use as many of those points as I can in a single image and generally speaking he watch the The Game Show in the 80s I think was Bruce Forsyth then they add the catchphrase that went along the lines of points make prizes and this next image that I'm just going to show you now which is a porcelain fungus I used a number of the techniques that we've discussed earlier today such as getting down low using leading lines rules of thirds backlighting all those elements have come together in that one picture and going back to my point about the game showing the eight sees points make the prizes this image actually was was highly commended I think it was volume seven and the British wildlife photography Awards a few years ago so what I would say is that looking back perhaps if you write down all the eight points that I've discussed today and just have them in your camera bag you can you can look at those and just maybe tick often basically I feel that the more of those elements you can bring together in a single image the more successful that image will be so I'm going to sit and enjoy the birdsong the rest of the morning just in peace and quiet and leave it there so if you've enjoyed the video you found it useful please leave some comments below let me know what you think and don't forget to subscribe and ring that bell for those notifications so until next time bye for now [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Simon Booth

Views: 61,356

Rating: 4.9601541 out of 5

Keywords: Photography, nature photography, how to, close-up, no tripod, photography tips, photography secrets, macro photography hints and tips, extension tubes, macro photography tutorial, take better macro, inspirational photography, learn photography, beginners macro, get better at macro, tips for better macro photography, Simon Booth, plant photography, flower photography, Photography to the next level, Macro photography hacks, macro photography setup, Macro photography tricks

Id: pWL_nFCRrzw

Length: 18min 38sec (1118 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020