SEEING THE SMALLER PICTURE
When fall deepens and winter is just around the corner, those of us who live where the seasons change are sometimes challenged with finding new subjects for our hobby. If you are an advanced hobbyist, chances are that you are using a Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera with an interchangeable lens. This is the start of what you need to begin making Macro Photos of one of my favorite subjects: all those other tiny bits that make up the world around us. Even the mostly unnoticed Lichens and Moss can provide an exciting landscape all their own. These mostly tiny plants (actually they are a type of fungus-bacteria conglomeration but I’m no botanist) can be found on rocks, leaves, decaying tree stumps and a myriad of places in the woods or in your own back yard. The almost-endless variations in shapes and colors give you a constantly changing source for subject matter. There are other amazing images to be captured when you start thinking small: the veins in a leaf, the surface of tree bark the intricate detail in a bee’s eye when viewed as a full frame image or less ambitious subjects like flowers and insects. But that tiny world that we bypass in pursuit of our sweeping landscape photos has a treasure trove of other subjects if we just look for them. Best of all, you don’t have to book passage to an exotic locale or carry around a king’s ransom in gear to capture them.
To try your hand at this exciting aspect of photography, you will only need a few pieces of equipment. First, you need a camera and lens combination that will allow you to get really close to your subject. Some fairly simple point-and-shoot cameras are able to focus down to incredibly close distances. Look at the camera and see if you can see the word "Macro" on the lens or as a switch or button on the camera somewhere. If you don't see Macro written somewhere then look for a Close-up setting. Chances are that if you don't have a Macro lens then you won't be able to focus close enough for the really tiny details, but don't let that stop you. There are still plenty of interesting patterns and colors that you can still photograph and you might be able to find an accessory macro lens to clip over your camera's lens that will enable you to focus even closer and try this exciting aspect of photography.
If you're lucky enough to have a SLR camera then you're well on your way. Ideally, you want to be able to focus close enough to reproduce your subject at a 1:1 ratio (or 100% of original size) or better. At 1:1, the image projected by your lens onto the surface of your camera's film or digital sensor is the same size as the subject; an object that is one inch wide will reproduce one inch wide on the film or sensor. It's not absolutely imperative that you be able to focus that close but in Macro Photography, the closer you can focus and the bigger the image size captured, the better.
So, if you have an SLR camera with a Macro capable lens then you're almost there. If you don't have a Macro lens there are still options for you that can allow you to take stunning macro photographs. One option is to purchase a good quality accessory close up lens that screws on like a filter in front of your existing lens. Don't skimp on the quality of this lens if you want really sharp photos, a good, pro-quality two-element close-up lens can easily run over $200 in larger sizes, but they're worth it.
Another way to go is to purchase a reversing lens mount. This is a slick little gadget that screws into the front threads of your lens and allows it to then be mounted backwards in your camera. This arrangement will permit you to get very close to your subject at relatively low cost. Most reverse adapters can be found for around $15 or less.
There are a few things to check before you buy a reverse adapter for your lens: Your lens must allow you to focus manually and change the aperture settings (f-stops) manually, and your camera must be able to operate in a manual exposure mode with an exposure indicator in the viewfinder. When I say that you must be able to focus and adjust the f-stop manually, it means that the lens, if removed from the camera, will still permit changing the focus distance and aperture. Many newer auto-focus lenses do not have a focus and/or aperture ring that will operate unless the lens is attached to the camera and the camera turned on. It’s easy to determine this by just removing the lens and examining it, if you can focus the lens & see the f-stop changing then you in business.
There are other options for close-up and Macro Photography such as bellows adapters, etc. but these are beyond the scope of this little blurb.
But wait; there are still some other considerations...
To get really sharp macro photographs, in addition to a decent lens properly focused, you need a stable camera support. When you are close enough to reproduce your subject at 50% or 100%, remember that any camera shake or subject motion will also reproduce at 100% or more. A good, sturdy tripod or other camera platform, augmented by one or two bags of lead shot or sand to help really take the shake out of your camera, will go a long way in removing unwanted vibrations. Another must, in my opinion, is a cable release. A cable release (or electronic shutter cable) will eliminate the shake introduced by your finger pressing the shutter release. If you don't have a cable release, use the self-timer to release the shutter. If you’re using a SLR camera, consider raising the mirror before you shoot if your camera and the subject will permit. The vibration made by the mirror retracting before the exposure can easily cause blur in some situations. At a 100% image size, even your heartbeat will introduce camera shake that can easily ruin your shot at slower shutter speeds! From all that, you can probably guess the next thing to consider: Use as high a shutter speed as you can to still satisfy other considerations in the shot you're trying to get. If you want to shoot at a slow shutter speed and small lens aperture to allow for a greater depth of field, for example, then the issue of camera stability becomes proportionally more pronounced. Finally, remember to take the wind into account and its potential affect on your subject and camera. If you are focused in tight on a flower petal and there’s a breeze then you may need to have something handy to block the wind. A piece of black or white poster board will suit the purpose just fine and can double as a reflector to help fill in dark shadows or cut light off a distracting background.
Depth of Field
Depth of field, or depth of focus, is the distance in front of and behind the exact point of focus of a lens where objects will appear to be in focus.
The closer you get to the subject, the less the apparent sharpness of objects not at the exact point the lens is focused will be. This can be overcome to some extent by using a smaller (larger f-number) shooting aperture. Right here is where many novices run into trouble. Depth of field is apparent sharpness.
Most lenses are actually sharpest (highest resolution) at about 1 ½ to 2 f stops down from wide open .
All lenses will have greater depth of field or apparent
overall focus of portions of the image in front of or behind the plane where the lens is focused when stopped down to their smaller apertures. This is a generalization and would not hold true for specialized flat-field lenses, some zoom lenses or where a subject had little or no depth, a photo of type on a page, for example. But we’re not going to get into that nor are we going to tackle more advanced and mystifying aspects of sharpness and depth such as "Circles of Confusion" and "Hyperfocal Distance". We’ll discuss that at another time. There are also techniques for combining photographs to create a composite image displaying tremendous depth but that’s also another subject entirely. As far as we are concerned, the question is whether or not all the parts of our photo that we want to look in focus do and whether or not we lose too much lens sharpness by using a really small aperture.
The answer is experiment; familiarize yourself with the way your particular lens behaves as you vary the aperture. Do this by shooting some test images of the same subject and evaluating the quality differences in the images. This will help you determine just where your lens’s "sweet spot" is and just how much the image degrades as you stop down.
I employed an old trick to evaluate focus by using a crisp dollar bill close enough to see the fine engraving lines. If you try this, make sure that the dollar is parallel with the back of the camera, focus manually to get as sharp an image as you can in the viewfinder and then, without touching the focus, shoot a series of images at ½ stop intervals. If your camera has an "aperture priority" mode, this will make this test easier. By the way, when you move the lens aperture, it will cause the image to change size slightly. You can see this in the two animated GIF images above, this is normal and a good thing to know if you're trying to make multiple exposures of the same subject. If they are supposed to match, change the shutter speed and keep the f-stop constant.
Remember these tips:
1) Stop down no more than is required to bring your entire subject that you want to be seen into apparent focus. Excessively small apertures will increase the exposure time and will degrade the true sharpness of the lens.
2) Depth of field will generally extend 1/3 in front of the focus point and 2/3 to the rear of the focus point. Sometimes you can cheat by focusing behind the actual subject point a bit when there is nothing of interest in front of it in order to get more depth behind the subject or vice-versa if the interest is mostly forward of the subject.
3) The faster the shutter speed, the sharper everything is going to be so you will need to strike a balance between depth of field and exposure time. Longer exposures invite subject movement (don’t forget the wind) and camera shake.
Finally, I started out talking about seeing the smaller picture in the fall or winter but I find that it can be very rewarding all year long...Forget the "Bigger Picture" once and a while and focus on the "Smaller Picture".