Tripod or Valium - The Thing about Macro

So this is the very first image, that i shot last summer with my new macro lens, the Canon EF-S 60mm 1:2,8 Makro. I remember this day very well. I unboxed the lens and went straight down to the Talvera, one of three rivers that run through Bolzano. On the rivershore i started chasing any kind of insects: ants, flies, bees, wasps and little birds (yes, i'm aware that they're not insects ;)

On this trip, i learned several things about macro:

1) Bring a tripod or take a valium

What i didn't realize at first was how difficult it is to get a good macro shot without a tripod.

- In general i'm not very fond of tripods, mainly because of their weight and handling issues - But in macro photography, it can be really essential to avoid camera shake when you do a hand shoot. Since you get so close to your subject, every little movement translates into a big shake in your frame causing motion blur. You can either avoid this with a tripod, or hold your breath like i did. If the lighting conditions are good, you can get away with holding your breath ;)

2) Search for "friendly models"

Nonetheless, after 20 minutes i got some fair shots of the fly in the picture. It was very polite, because it held still for periods of like 1 or 2 seconds. What i mean with "friendly models" is that there are animals which almost never stay still (like wasps, ants, etc.) <-- those are difficult models. And there are animals that don't move fast and are easier to capture (like caterpillars, butterflies and this very fly here), which are, as i call them, "friendly models".

3) Forget autofocus

The third thing i learned on this day is that you can forget your autofocus if you shoot macro. This has nothing to do with the quality of the lens, it's just that you're shooting in a very deep depth of field in comparison to your distance to the object. Sure, if you take enough shots, there will be some photos with good focus, but i really would advise to switch to manual focus in this case. It gives you a much higher "right-on-the-spot-rate" and always works great for me.

4) Don't hang on to very large apertures (small f-stops), you get bokeh anyway

This is again a matter of depth of field (DOF). Since you are so close to your "model", the DOF is quite deep, so that your image overall won't be very sharp with an f/2.8. Moreover, in macro photography you often want to display very fine details (like wing structure of flies), which is just not possible with a large aperture. This image was shot at an aperture of f/7.1 and i still got a dreamy bokeh because my motive is so far away from its background.

5) ISO is your best friend

Yes, i'm also one the people who would rather always shoot at ISO 100 because i hate noise, but in macro i must admit, pumping up the ISO really saves some pictures.

This image was shoot in natural light with the following settings:

ISO 800

f/7.1

1/500s

Now imagine the natural lighting conditions would be worse, i would have to adjust my camera settings. With a slower shutterspeed i could gain additional light, but since my model likes to move, i can't go down without risking motion blur. With a larger aperture (smaller f-stop) i would also win some light back, but i would pay this light with sharpness in details. So in this case, going up with the ISO is the best price-performance-ratio, at least in my eyes.

So, that's it from me, i hope you can take away a bit about macro, without having to spend a day on the rivershore and getting bitten by mosquitos!