I wanted to be able to take macro pictures even though I do not have a macro lens, so I bought the macro filters. I'm sure y'all know what I'm talking about, the ones that screw onto the front of your regular lens. These were pretty cheap, but I wasn't happy. The more glass you shoot through, the more distorted your image looks, and to be honest, I wasn't happy with the quality of the images.
I had heard other people mention the technique I will be showing you today, but the first time I tried it, I failed, so I thought it also was going to be a big ol' dud like the filters. I started really doing some research into how others were doing this because I saw some amazing shots taken this way. Thanks to pinterest (which I'm sure many of y'all are addicted to like me) I found some pretty well written blogs about this technique. Once I felt like I had enough information on how to do this, I took my lenses and camera out and started playing around!
Ok so now I'm sure y'all are getting curious about how to do this, and what technique I'm talking about. Here we go:
So normally when you take a picture, your lens is attached like this:
Sorry about the quality of the images they were taken from my ipad mini.
But when you shoot Macro you want to turn it backwards like this:
They do make attachments that are super cheap to actually attach your lens this way. I would recommend one of those attachments so you get a much better picture.
When choosing your lens it's easiest with a lens that can be in manual mode so the aperture stays open. In these pictures I was using my 50mm lens. It is also better to have your camera on a tripod so that you do not have a blurred picture do to shakiness. For the pictures I will be posting I did not use a tripod since I was just testing this technique, but in the future I will be using one because I was getting so irritated at the wind moving my subject around. With a tripod I can at least hold my subject still so I get a perfect image!
Your camera will not read a lens when doing this, so you do not have aperture control which means you will have to use shutter and ISO to get the lighting right on your image. Also you will have to adjust what is in focus by physically moving closer or father from the image (another control you do not have because your camera doesn't read a lens attached to it) With macro photography you want to be extremely close to your subject anyways.
Ok so here are some of the images I took while trying out this method... I think it works pretty well to say the least. It will definitely be something I continue playing with until I get myself an actual macro lens. I must say too that I am really happy with the quality of the images compared to the quality of the ones using the filter attachments.
I know this image does not look like macro, and that's because it's not. This is what my 50mm normally takes. You know, when it's attached the correct way.
This is what it looks like when I turn my 50mm around and use it as a macro! I love the quality of this image. You can really see the awesome color detail in the rose here. It's a very crisp image in the focal areas. Also with macro your depth of field is very shallow, so you generally do not have much that is fully in focus.
Here is another one taken with my 50mm.
I love posting both images because it just shows how much of a difference the subject looks far away and close up.
Now are you wondering if a 50mm is the only lens you can use? It is a very popular one to use that for sure. Many of the tutorials I read used the 50mm, but I wanted to explore other lenses, so I had my bag with me.
Here is the same plant from above with a 35mm.
This one was taken using my 35mm normally. You can see this is a very small weed or extremely tall grass.
And now here it using my 35mm as a macro! It's much closer to the subject than the 50mm was, and as a result has a much smaller focal area too.
So to me the background was kind of boring because it's just a solid color, so lets play around with adding textures! I think this will make the image look more interesting. Remember textures can be fun to play with, and they can add more to your image, but they can also be to distracting.
Hmm... I feel like this is distracting because it's fighting for your focus with the subject. The texture is to clear, so lets see what it looks like if we blur it too...
I think that's much better! So now not only have I had fun goofing around with macro, but I got to play around with textures too! YAY to photography fun!
I also used my 18-55mm when doing this, and it worked too. Now go have fun and enjoy seeing the world in macro!
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