Photo Assignment # 4 - Macro Photography - Deadline: February 24

Photographing the landscapes and looking for the most beautiful places has its merit for the photographer who wants more than the average picture. Beautiful images are definitely born from those who have discipline to wake up early, and be at the right place at the right time. Now, going the extra mile and looking for that something “else” to tell a story is for those who are really into photography.

When you watch a good movie, you will see a story well told. The planning, the light, the personages, the plot, the angles, the panoramic vision, the framing, the tight closes, the shadows, the spotlights. All ties up together to tell the end of the movie.

Well, when you go on a photo journey, it should be the same. But most of us forget the details, the change of perspective, the direction of light and the perfect timing.

A good image does not happen by chance. Specially in landscape and macro photography. Carefully planned, a macro shot requires a little bit extra patience than a regular panoramic or landscape photography.

It starts with the tripod, to assure you don’t blur the image, since macro shots are shot within a few inches from the subject.

Then the appropriate lens, a macro lens, specially designed to allow you to get close and magnify the reason of how close to real life size the subject is. A typical lens will have reasons like 1:2 (your subject will be half the size of its real size in the picture) or 1:1 (your subject will be the same size as it is in real life).

The most common lenses for macro are 50mm macro and 100 macro. However, setting them in your camera body is not a proof of getting a good picture. You need to decide on what kind of lighting will be used to capture the image. Will it be backlight? Will it be sidelight? Will it be flash? Natural light? Window light? All these could be used to photograph your small subject and cause impact.

Once you decide the light, position your tripod in the height you want to work in your composition, that is, are you going to show the whole object? Half? Are you going to position it to show it as tight crop? Lot of negative(empty) space around it?

What about depth of field? Do you want to have a lot or a little?

Remember that the aperture and the distance to your subject being very close will strongly reduce your depth of field to millimeters, being more appropriate to have a big depth of field if you plan to have your whole subject in focus.

With an aperture such as 2.8 , 4 or 5.6 you will be very limited to depth of field and lots of blurriness will show in your picture. F 11, 16 or even 22 will get your subject more depth of field.

It’s your vision though and you can approach it however you wish.

Select a subject like a flower, a bug, anything little that calls your attention, and set some time for this assignment. It does require patience. Produce 3 images and share your experience of how did you do it. Explain where was the light coming from, if it was natural light or any other kind of light, what you did to compose, what were you thinking.

Make comments about what was your vision compared with the result you got. Tell which aperture, shutter speed, ISO and any other post processing you did to get your final images.

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