Mighty Macro

I am in Hilton Head, SC to give a presentation on Macro photography to a large camera club. Macro is a much broader category of photography than you might think. In the old days it was very narrowly defined as representing a subject at life-size or larger. Also, the conventional thinking was that every element of the subject had to be razor sharp.

Well, that was your grandmother's macro! Today we have much more freedom in how we create macro images. Macro can be a close-up of the subject, but can be smaller than life size. Also, we can be much more creative with shallow depth of field, rendering parts of the subject soft and moody.

The flip side of that thinking, however, is creating images that are sharper than a lens can create on its own, using multiple images and software to blend them together to make every single part of the subject super sharp. Personally I do not used that technique since I prefer a softer more artistic look. But you should find the route that suits you and the subject the best.

Today's image is a water droplet on melting glacier ice in Alaska. Note that it was NOT taken with a macro lens. You can achieve a macro look with other lenses, from wide angle to telephoto if you are careful. Many of today's lenses allow you to focus fairly closely to the subject. Experiment with your lenses to see how close you can be to the subject and still bring parts of the subject into focus. Wide angle lenses will create a very different look from telephoto lenses. My preference, if I am not using a macro lens, is to use a telephoto lens which enables the background to be rendered out of focus, drawing attention to the main subject.

TECH SPECS 1/500 sec. at f/9, ISO 800. Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS II lens, set at 105mm, on Canon 5D Mark III body.  Handheld.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh the thinks you can think up if only you try."  --Dr. Seuss