Muddy Macro Walk

The weather here in Cornwall has been shocking, one storm after another means it's been hard to get out and about. When my friend and fellow creative Poppy saw a break in the rain, this shut-in jumped at the chance to leave the house camera-in-hand.

Poppy wanted to take some Macro shots so we headed out for an impromptu lesson. We covered the essential exposure triangle. Adjusting the ISO, aperture and shutter speed as we went along to capture some still life images in natural light.

I love the bokeh created with a combination of open aperture and

long lens!

One challenge with macro photography is the wind. Although I had a suitably high shutter speed some blur was created as the leaf blew back and forth.

Don't forget you can use your macro lens for large objects. This close-up of a tree really captures the texture of its bark.

Poppy had a wideangle lens (28mm if I remember correctly) with extension tubes, her shots are extreme close-ups with the camera very close to the subject.

There are formulas you can use to work out the magnification you are getting with extension tubes but it's too complicated for me and I prefer an intuitive approach to photography.

Click here for an external link with the math.

The photographs you see here were taken on my Sigma 70-300 macro lens on my crop sensor camera.

If you've been inspired to try macro I would start out like Poppy an I with some still life like flowers. Moving subjects like insects will require a faster shutter speed therefor more light than these cloudy days are providing.

Don't forget if you are using extension tubes you will lose some light and some sharpness.

I still prefer to shoot people but I may take a closer look at macro photography.

#macro #photography #nature #closeup