Imagine the same Ladybug standing next to your sensor the next time you clean it. Now we're talking!

Many camera manufacturers actually list their lenses as Macro, when what they mean is "close up". If you want to get into true macro photography, do a little research, and find out if your lens will do 1:1 (or better in some cases).

For the longest time, every time I took a close up shot of a flower or mushroom there would be a thin band of subject in focus, but everything else was blurry.

It gets a little technical, but here are the main 3 points working against you:

1) The closer you get to a subject, the smaller your depth of field.

2)The larger you aperture, the smaller the depth of field.

3)Your critical focus extends about 1/3 in FRONT of your focus point, and 2/3 BEHIND.

1) Nothing you can do about the depth of field getting smaller (unless you just switch to landscape photography ;). Just accept this one, and skip down to 2 and 3.

2). Use the smallest aperture you can when shooting Macro. If you have to, bump up your ISO settings to 400 or 800 if your camera can handle it. The mushroom above was shot at f 9.5, 800 ISO, at 1/60th of a second. I was shooting hand held, but use a tripod if you have one, and go as slow as you need to. F18 or 22 would work just fine on a tripod.

3) The tendency in all types of shooting is to place your focus sensor in the most important or interesting area (or in the center). In my mushroom shot above, this would probably be the water area. However, you should resist this temptation and place the focus area much closer to the front rim of the mushroom, as we know MOST of the focus is behind the area you focus on.

Well, you are in luck. There are a bunch of ways to get even closer. Some are fairly inexpensive, and others are going to cost you a mint.

If you are just getting into macro and want to take the next step, you might want to think about getting extension tubes. The basic idea of an extension tube is that the farther you get your lens away from your camera, the closer you can get to an object and still bring it into focus. These are a totally different idea than teleconverters. There is no lenses or glass in an extension tube... only empty air. Most of the newer ones do contain circuitry that allows your camera and lens to communicate... so your TTL and auto focus should still work. At this magnification however your autofocus is virtually useless. Do yourself a favour and stitch to manual right off.

Extension tubes usually come in different sizes that can be used individually or stacked together for greater magnification.

MP-E 65mm

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