Macro Photography Tips at Home

Macro Photography  •  Photography Tips

There can be certain situations where you find yourself stuck indoors. Maybe it’s the unfavorable weather, safety concerns, or just because you don’t feel like heading outside. In any case, it doesn’t mean that your creativity needs to take a hit too. Macro photography is something that can be versatile in indoor situations. It can be the right way to keep yourself engaged and take some interesting photos. Photographer Maria Perez with B&H shares some great tips on being creative with macro photography at home:

“Macro photography is a style of photography that involves shooting smaller subjects to make them look larger or even life-size.”

We admit it – macro photography isn’t for everyone. It requires a specialized lens, proper lighting, and interesting subjects. Also, keep in mind that when shooting macro photos, focusing becomes a huge challenge. The depth of field is so shallow that it becomes difficult to have a good portion of the subject in focus. To overcome this challenge, Perez also talks about a technique called focus stacking.

To start with, make sure that you use a dedicated macro lens. It lets you shoot up to a magnification of 1:1 (life-size) or even larger depending on the lens. Macro lenses have a close focusing distance that lets you get close to your subject and capture their magnified image. This is what makes them different from other lenses.

To have most of the subject in focus, you’ll need to work with smaller aperture values like f/11 or f/16. This becomes an issue indoors because light is very limited. So, look for light sources. Either shoot close to a window, or use a flash or some other sort of constant light source.

“Sometimes the most boring items in the house can be the most interesting under a macro lens.”

What good is a photo if the subject is not interesting enough? Objects that have lots of texture in them make for a good macro subject. Look around for interesting subjects. Fruits, jewelry, and wrist watches are potentially good macro subjects.

And lastly, if you want most of the subject in focus, you’ll need to do a little extra work and make use of focus stacking. It involves taking a series of photos, each focused at a different area of the subject, and later blending all of them in Photoshop.

Try taking some macro photos indoors if you haven’t already. You’ll be surprised by how the creative challenge can really push your development as a photographer forward.