Macro Droplet Smartphone Photography Tutorial

Macro Photography  •  Photography Tips  •  Smartphone Photography

Macro photography is a specialized genre of photography used to take magnified or life-size images of subjects. For true macro photography, you need a proper macro lens. Macro lenses have the ability to focus at a very close distance, and have a pretty shallow depth of field. This is how they differ from other lenses. If you want to try your hand at macro photography but don’t want to invest that extra cash right away Stewart Wood has an idea for you. He shows you how you can take a brilliant macro photo using your smartphone camera:

Smartphones today come with a built-in macro feature in the camera application. If your phone has that application, go ahead and simply use that feature. In case the feature is missing, you can search online  for a clip-on macro lens attachment that goes over your smartphone’s camera. Whether you’re using the built-in feature or the lens attachment, be sure to get an estimate of the working distance. This will help you in planning your setup properly.

For his subject, Wood uses a dandelion seed and sprays some water over it using a small perfume bottle. The aim is to photograph the water droplets on the dandelion. Besides the subject, you also need to pay attention to lighting and background. Colorful backgrounds make for beautiful images when they’re out of focus. As for lighting, you can use a flashlight to light the dandelion and the background. Move the flashlight around for the best results.

If you’re bored stuck indoors or want to try out macro photography, this can be a good exercise. If you happen to try it out, let us know how it all goes.