How To Guide: Close-up

From the Canon tutorials we bring you this,….Macro is the perfect photographic activity for the autumn and winter months as it can be done indoors as well as out when the days are shorter and weather is less predictable. We agree with this and recommend it in our classes.

Getting going
If you are starting off you can use the standard zoom lens that typically comes with EOS cameras before possibly upgrading to a dedicated macro lens. Use the telephoto to zoom in to maximum magnification Good advice too

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Harmony in the water, © Roberto Tacchetto, Canon EOS-1D Mark III

How to Set Up a Lighting Studio for Macro Flower Photography

More from Lightstalking and a tutorial by the much admired  Tom Dinning, as Tom says “Like sunsets and the grand-kids, flowers are up there as a popular subject for photographing. They also suit close inspection with the macro lens, extension tubes or whatever you use for your close-up work.” He is so right I have to ban students in some classes from handing in flower shots just to ensure there is some variety; my current bans for the summer school I am teaching at Lady Margaret Hall College here in Oxford, are no flowers, no ducks and no pictures of friends goofing around.

Click Here: How to Set Up a Lighting Studio for Macro Flower Photography

Wildlife up close – macro photography

This is another kind of wildlife, probably requiring a similar skill level and maybe as much patience there are lots more pictures here from Photography Magazine

How to Take the Perfect Spring Flower Macro Photograph

Here is another tutorial from Christopher O’Donnell

“The warmer weather means more opportunities for one of my favorite styles of photography: macro images of flowers. With a dedicated macro lens (or specialized filter), you have the means to create some artful photographs using only the environment your backyard provides.”……..more

Tom Dinning’s Images The Abstraction of Macro

Tom is a photographer and teacher in Darwin, Australia, he always has something interesting to say, this is from his current post

“Over the past few days I have been out with the macro lens attached.
I’m a bit of an extremist when it comes to using this lens which, I might add, I like using for all sorts of things.
But its main function, I see, is to enable me to get close. So I do. Instead of selecting a subject and focussing in on it, I set the focus on the lens at ‘closest’ and move in with the camera until the images start to appear sharply before me.
This is when the world takes on a new and mysterious appeal and I start hunting for shapes, forms, lines, shadows, colour, texture, anything this tiny world has to offer me.
The frame becomes my window into this world. I find myself quite mesmerised by it all.”  I definitely agree with the idea of not letting auto focus decide what your picture is going to be  more here