HOW TO SHOOT - MACRO ON A BUDGET

Get incredible close-ups with basic camera kit, a good dose of creativity and everyday items. Dan Mold shows you how…

- Dan Mold

There’s a whole new world just waiting to be discovered with your camera – all it requires is a macro lens, or even budget-friendly macro accessories. This will help you get closer to everyday items to transform them into extraordinary photographs. The brilliant thing about macro is that it covers a broad range of subjects, including everything from still-life to inanimate objects or kitchen items, to insects and flowers that you can easily find in your garden, local park or nature reserve – they all make great considerations for close-up photo subjects.

In this feature, we’ll show you how to achieve fantastic macro shots with minimal kit and even the most limited of budgets, plus more advanced gear that will come in handy if you want to venture further down the macro rabbit hole. We will also take you through three easy but effective techniques you can try out around your home or in the garden. Depth of field, also referred to as the zone of sharp focus in your images, becomes extremely limited when you’re focusing so close to your subject – even with higher aperture values such as f/22. To overcome this, we’ll teach you how to stack the focus of your photos together so you can take multiple shots at different focus distances and combine the sharpest bits together in Photoshop to create a broader range of sharpness. So let’s get started!

PART 1

GET THE RIGHT MACRO GEAR

Kit yourself out with the right equipment to take amazing macro imagery