Macro photography: How to get up close for flower and insect photos
This image of Aphids on a milkweed plant is a fascinating study in nature. If you look close you can see ants “farming” the aphids while two lady bugs wait in the wings to devour the aphids. These are the fascinating images that macro photography offers photographers.
You don’t need expensive equipment to get great garden and flower close-up shots
Getting up close and personal to flowers and insects in the garden can be an eye opening experience.
Even on the worst of days, when the flowers look spent, the trees are tired and the unbearable heat saps the energy out of any hopes of capturing a beautiful image, there is always macro or closeup photography.
Somewhere out there in the garden – probably very close by – is an insect, a butterfly, a tiny flower, maybe a mushroom just begging to be photographed. And, depending on your expectations, capturing these images is not really difficult. Close-up images are available with almost every camera including more inexpensive compact, point-and-shoot cameras. If you have never used the closeup/macro mode, I encourage you to give it a try.
Closeup photography will open an entire new world to you that maybe you never knew even existed in your garden. The impressive colours in a beetle, the incredible detail of the wings on the butterfly, the daily life-and-death-struggle that largely goes unnoticed in the garden – all open up to us as we move in close.
For more on photographing flowers in your garden, check out my comprehensive post on flower photography in your garden.
For more on garden photography, be sure to check out my Ten tips for Great Garden Photography.
If you are looking to purchase a new or used camera, Check out my article on The Best Camera and Lens for garden photography.
And, if you are wondering how a point-and-shoot digital camera that’s more than 10 years old can perform in the garden, be sure to check out my post on the Canon PowerShot Elph 500 HS.
If most of your garden images are pictorial approaches showing wide vistas of flower beds probably taken with a wide angle lens, or, even more intimate vignettes of groupings of flowers and maybe a birdbath, you owe it to yourself to experiment with macro or closeup photography.
Macro/closeup photography enables you to tell a whole new story in your garden. If you think there are no more images to be taken in the garden, think again.
If you are looking for more information on taking closeup or macro images in the garden, be sure to check out Kelbyone’s many online photography courses.
This native Bumble Bee on salvia was photographed with a manual focus 105mm macro lens on a 20-year-old DSLR camera with a flash equipped with a small, inexpensive flash mini softbox.
The image of aphids and ladybugs on the milkweed is a perfect example of the everyday struggle in our gardens that is easy to overlook. I was on my hands and knees trying to find a monarch caterpillar to photograph when I saw the scene playing out under the leaves of the milkweed. The scene would have gone completely unnoticed if I was not looking for close-up images down low in the garden.
What equipment is needed to shoot garden macro photography
Don’t get confused by the terms macro or closeup photography. Macro technically means getting so close that you photograph your subject at lifesize or 1:1. Closeup photography is simply getting in close enough to your subject to create an image that satisfies you. For example, neither a monarch butterfly, nor a large dahlia, need to be shot at life size for an effective closeup image.
For true macro, a specialized lens or accessories are needed. Most of today’s compact cameras come equipped with a closeup setting that allows you to photograph flowers, butterflies and insects up close.
A macro lens shot wide open probably at f2.8 creates this lovely soft background in this flower photography image. This effect would be difficult to achieve with a compact lens set on close focus.
In the image of the ladybugs and aphids, it certainly helped that I had my macro setup with me that included a DSLR, a manual focus 105mm manual focus macro lens and a flash equipped with a mini-softbox attached to soften the light. Although I consider this setup my more “serious” macro setup, the DSLR is 20 years old, the lens is at least 22 years old and even the flash is an older model. I shoot it all on manual – manual exposure, manual focus. Nothing fancy here.
This is an example of the images that are possible with a high-end point-and-shoot on macro mode. This Bee balm was photographed using the FujiX10 compact camera with a 28mm-110mm (in 35mm terms). Notice the soft background that is made possible by the speed of this outstanding lens.
Garden photographers may not want to invest in a more “serious” macro setup like this. No problem. Chances are you already have a perfectly useable closeup or macro lens on your compact point-and-shoot, travel, or bridge camera. Even your smartphone has the capability of getting up close to most subjects you will want to photograph.
Check out this link for my ten-year-review of the Fujifilm X10 that I used to take the Bee balm image above.
The important factor is getting comfortable with using these features on your camera and learning to work with light to capture interesting images. Macro photography is no different than any other types of photography in that light is the key component to capturing interesting images. Harsh, mid-day light may not be the best time to photograph.
This Iris was again shot with a 100mm macro lens to give an extreme closeup. The size of the flower means it could have been photographed with many close focusing compact cameras possibly equipped with a closeup filter accessory.
Digital has changed the world of macro photography
If you are like me and struggled to obtain usable macro images during the film years, you might be surprised how digital has completely changed the approach to macro or closeup photography.
In my film years, I would not have thought of shooting closeup or macro images without the use of a tripod. The combination of wind blowing the subject around and film sporting ISO settings of 25 (Kodachrome), 50 (Velvia), made getting good macro images a real challenge.
Impossible without a tripod.
A monarch feeds on a thistle in late summer. Capturing these images takes time and patience but are beautiful natural snapshots in time.
Today’s modern cameras allow you to pump up the ISO to astronomical levels and still get excellent results without lugging around a tripod.
In fact, if you are shooting with a Fuji camera, you can shoot the digital equivalent of Fuji Velvia at pretty much any ISO you like. Even “Kodachrome”, which Fuji calls classic chrome, can be photographed at pretty much any ISO you like. That’s a far cry from using the ridiculously low ISO settings of ISO 50-64 for the original slide films.
ISO levels of between 1600-3200 would be unthinkable during the Kodachrome and Fujichrome years. Today, these ISO levels can be starting points for many of today’s modern cameras, especially if you use software like On1 NoNoise to reduce the noise in your images.
I like to stay below ISO 1000, but shoot as low as 200 ISO if given the opportunity and when I use flash.
What does all this mean to the garden photographer?
It means you can grab your compact camera, set it on closeup mode and get excellent hand-held images of a butterfly, or a closeup of your favourite flower in full bloom.
With a little more planning, you can set up a tripod beside your favourite flower, move in close and wait for a butterfly or insect to come land on it.
In this macro image you can see the extremely limited depth of field resulting from using the lens wide open (f2.8) with only the eyes being in focus. Today’s modern cameras offer “focus-stacking” which allows the maker to take several images focusing in different areas of the subject and then blending them together to make the entire subject tack sharp.
Modern technology has even made firing the camera from a distance with a wireless remote a whole lot easier. Heck, with some cameras, (a Lumix for example) you can even trigger it with an app on your cell phone while you’re sipping on a glass of wine or your morning coffee 10 feet away from the camera.
Times have certainly changed for today’s photographers wanting to add macro or closeup photography to their arsenal. All we gardeners need to do is take advantage of what today’s modern cameras and lenses offer us.
What accessories are good for garden macro photography?
As noted above, excellent macro images can be taken on anything from a good compact point-and-shoot camera with its built-in lens, to a modern high-end DSLR or mirrorless camera equipped with an expensive macro lens that enables extremely fine detail and close approach.
The quality of the image and your success rate will generally increase in direct proportion to the amount of money you invest in the equipment, but don’t let that stop you from getting the most out of the equipment you already have in your bag.
There are, however, accessories you can add to improve your results significantly no matter what equipment you are using.
• A good off-camera flash, for example, goes a long way to opening up possibilities in the macro world. I’ve added an attachment from Fotodiox that goes over the flash to create a mini soft box. This combination has certainly improved my macro images.
• Small LED lights, like this one from B&H Photo are another example of how technology has changed the world of macro photography. These small, battery powered lights that fit in the palm of your hand, provides a continuous light source that is easily manipulated around the subject even as you are looking through the camera.
• Similar to the LED lights mentioned above, is the Godox RING48 Macro Ring LED Light that fits around most lenses a provides perfect, but controllable light.
• Collapsible reflectors, like these from B&H photo, are available in gold, silver and white, and allow you to reflect light into dark areas of the image.
• Closeup lenses, like this kit made by Lensbaby at B&H Photo that thread on to the front of your lens are an easy way to turn any lens into a close focusing lens. I like to use one of these on the Fujifilm X10 which, although the camera already has an excellent close-focusing capability, only gets better with the Nikon close-up filter.
• Extension tubes can only be used on cameras with interchangeable lenses. Extension tubes like these at Adorama photography have no glass elements inside of them, are inexpensive and do not degrade image quality. Their prime duty is to allow any lens to focus more closely. That makes them a useful addition whether you are using a 50mm or a longer telephoto lens. Using them with a telephoto lens is exceptionally helpful to allow you to get images of small subjects from a distance.
An up close macro image of this native bloodroot provides details that easily go unnoticed by the naked eye.
Just get out in the garden and give macro a try
There was a time when macro was a specialized area of photography. It involved expensive lenses and approaches that required meticulous attention to detail and exposure. That’s no longer the case. Getting great shots of your garden up close has never been easier with today’s modern cameras and accessories.
Take a few mornings to wander through the garden and catch the light skipping across your favourite flowers. Move in on the insect waiting for the sun to raise the temperature enough for it to begin its day.
Focus on what you want to capture up close in your garden and consider adding accessories that make it possible to capture those images. Close-up photography can open up a new world for you and hep you become much more intimate with your garden and the critters who call it home.