Master the art of modern photography

This month: Close-up and macro Get in close, closer and closer still and explore the world in a fresh way

Take a journey into the fascinating world of close-up and macro shooting.

Will Cheung

Will Cheung An imaging journalist and freelance photographer based in London, Cheung has a wealth of experience over several decades. www.williamcheung.co.uk

◼︎ The world is a busy place and, consequently, our photographs can look cluttered and too full of things. However, your superpower is the ability to control what you include in your pictures so that tidier, more compelling and more successful photos are yours for the taking – all you have to do is move your feet or zoom in closer. Most of our photographic lives are spent capturing scenes and subjects some distance from the camera and that’s what we are most comfortable with. However, make the effort to move in close and a world of opportunity awaits.

This month’s Camera Clinic turns its lens onto close-up photography – everything from a metre or so is fair game – but we get even more intimate and delve into macro with subjects just a few centimetres from the camera. Moving in close and shooting macro sounds easy, and indeed it is once you have mastered a few core techniques, but it is fraught with challenges. Not only do you need the kit, but one of photography’s most valuable commodities becomes scarce when you venture in close.

Depth of field is the amount of front-to-back sharpness in a photo. Shoot a landscape at f/11 and this zone extends from a few metres in front of the camera to infinity so there is plenty of depth of field and everything appears sharp. However, if you now focus on something one metre from the camera, using the same lens and aperture, this zone becomes much shallower so accurate focus is critical. Move closer into macro territory and the depth of field can be measured in millimetres, all of which makes achieving critically sharp photos a challenge.

Of course, focus is just one technical hurdle to overcome and there’s much more, so join us for our advice and inspiration-packed guide to great close-up photography.

Get the knowledge

Shooting small things is fun and immensely rewarding

Getting the most out of this genre is more demanding than you might think and having the right lens and supporting cast of accessories is important.

Every lens has a focusing range from infinity to much closer depending on the lens type and focal length. A standard 24-105mm zoom might be capable of focusing to 30cm while with a 100-500mm lens, it’s more likely to be in the region of 90cm, giving something around a modest one-quarter life-size magnification.

For more powerful close-ups, you need to be closer for a life-size or 1:1 magnification so the best option is a macro lens, an optic designed specifically for this type of work. Macro lenses have a short telephoto focal length so they double up as excellent tools for general and portrait shooting.

Gear to get you in close

Small might be beautiful but for the best shots of tiny things, you need the right kit

MACRO LENS Traditionally, a lens with the ‘macro’ tag gives a magnification up to 1:1 or lifesize. It is often the case, however, that the term is applied to optics that give only one-half (1:2) or one-third (1:3) magnification, so this is something to watch when buying a macro lens. Wide-angle macro lenses are available but generally, a telephoto macro lens is more practical and gives a more comfortable working distance from the subject.