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Everything You Need to Know About Macro Photography

Many photographers today want to know how to take macro pictures, thanks to a growing number of beautiful images online of small plants, animals, and insects. Macro photography is not always easy, especially for beginners, but it is one of the most rewarding genres of photography you can do. With the right skills, you will be able to capture amazing images even in your own backyard. To learn macro photography from start to finish, you should begin by reading the tips and techniques in this guide, taught by an award-winning macro photographer exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. By the end, you will know exactly how to put these recommendations into practice and capture stunning macro photographs for yourself.

 

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Macro photo exhibited in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History from 2015 to 2016, “Nature’s Best Photography” award winner. © Spencer Cox

NIKON D800E + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 100, 1/640, f/3.2

 

Before anything else, if you’re more of a visual learner, you may want to watch the following video we created to introduce macro photography. It covers many of the same topics as this article, although some sections have been shortened for the sake of video length:

 

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What Is Macro Photography?

Macro photography is close-up photography of small subjects, including things like bugs and flowers. You can take macro pictures in a studio or outdoor environment so long as you are magnifying your subject sufficiently.

Officially, you may hear that macro photography only happens when you take pictures of small subjects with a magnification of “life size” or greater. I will cover more about the meaning of magnification and life-size in a moment, but essentially it means that you must take pictures where your subject is the same size as your camera sensor or smaller, and it fills the frame. (So, if your camera sensor is one inch wide, you would be photographing something 1 inch or smaller.)

That is a very strict definition, and frequently you will hear photographers call an image “macro” even when it shows a slightly larger subject. The same is true of the photos in this article, many of which do not fit this technical definition, but they are close-up photographs nevertheless.

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NIKON D7000 + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 800, 1/250, f/22.0

 

Introducing Macro Photography for Beginners

How do you take macro photos? Here are the most important steps:

 

  • Understand macro photography terminology.
  • Pick the right camera and lens equipment.
  • Get enough depth of field.
  • Pick camera and flash settings for a well-lit photo.
  • Focus on the most important part of your subject.
  • Learn the common behaviors of various insects.
  • Compose and take your picture.

Some of these are harder to do than you might think, such as getting enough depth of field and focusing on the most important part of your subject. However, the tips in the rest of this macro photography tutorial will give you a good idea of where to begin, and you should be able to master everything with a bit of practice.

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NIKON D7000 + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 100, 13/10, f/5.6

 

What Is Magnification?

In macro photography, it is important to know how large or small your subject appears on your camera sensor. Comparing this number versus your subject’s size in the real world gives you a value known as your magnification.

If that ratio is simply one-to-one, your subject is said to be at “life size” magnification. For example, if you’re photographing something that is one centimeter in length, and it is projected exactly one centimeter onto your camera sensor, it is at life size (regardless of the size of your camera sensor).

Typical sensors in DSLRs and mirrorless cameras range from about about 17 millimeters to 36 millimeters across. So, a 1 cm subject is pretty big by comparison, taking up a significant portion of your photo. If you end up making a large print, that tiny object will appear huge – potentially billboard sized!

To make things easier to understand and compare, macro photographers use an actual ratio rather than always saying “life size” or “half life size.” Specifically, life size is 1:1 magnification. Half life size is 1:2 magnification. Once you get to about one-tenth of life size, you arguably are not doing close-up or macro photography any more.

Good macro lenses let you shoot at 1:1 magnification, and some specialized options do even more than that. (Canon has a macro photography lens that goes all the way to 5:1, or 5x magnification, which is insane!) However, other lenses on the market called “macro” may only go to 1:2 magnification or even less. Personally, my recommendation is to get a lens that can go to at least 1:2 magnification, and ideally 1:1 magnification, if you want as much flexibility as possible.