A Better Shot IV: Macro

Alright. We've all seen those crazy postcard photos of those flowers that look so real and so textured you can almost touch them. So large and close to life size you can't believe its just a picture. Well, theres a reason they look that good. One of those reasons would probably be the great cameras that those tourist companies have, and the second reason would be that those pictures were taken with macro.

Now what exactly is macro? Well, first off, its a shooting mode that can be accessed on pretty much all digital cameras these days. it is usually indicated by a flower symbol (M is for manual mode). Why is this? It's simply because taking macro shots of flowers just looks... really good. So yes. Macro is obviously used for close ups of objects. This gives you a ton of detail and texture, and allows you to make a really great close-up of textured things like flower petals and metalwork, just to name a couple.

But more technically, macro is usually (at least when talking about film cameras) when the subject in the picture is in a 1:1 size ratio with its actual size. For example, you may be familiar with the Microsoft Word feature that allows you to change the percentage viewing of your document. Usually, this is set to 100% (by default). This means that the page you are viewing on your computer screen is the actualy size of the sheet of paper, and the actual size the words will turn out. This is the same for a typical 35mm macro lense; the subject usually looks the same size on film as it does in real life (however 1/2:1 is also sometimes considered macro).

Another important thing to note is that macro effectively "widens" (but not really) the lense size (for example increasing from 8mm to, say, 40mm). What this does is create more depth of field. And what THIS means is that in your picture, one subject will most likely be in sharp focus, while the background will be very blurred (not from the motion or camera shake but simply indistinct; blurred colors). If you take a look at this picture up there, you will see that the flowers and petals are in sharp focus, while the background is completely blurred. This is good when you want to focus on one subject at a close range.

It is usually not a good idea to use macro in very dark conditions, or with flash because this will probably kill your sensor. For more info about film speed and shooting in dark conditions, check out my previous post about film speed.

So get shooting. It's really a good way to make artistic photos without much skill, hehe. I think I abuse it just a bit too much.

kamster

By the way, I'm actually not that good at photography and alot of my terminology and technical specs will probably be innacurate.. Like when I say that it creates depth of field, what I'm really trying to say is something about the optimal range from the camera that your subject should be. This obviously will determine what will be in focus and what won't. With macro, the optimal range is probably half a foot at most.