An Intro to Macro - Equipment Basics

Following on from my stream-of-consciousness post on all things macro yesterday, I decided to try and type things up into a more sensible order. My initial intention was to make it shorter and, hopefully, easier to follow. Having got down to things, I’ve certainly failed on the first of my objectives; I’ve tackled a single area so far and ended up with more words than I had in my whole rant. Having completed this section, I’ve decided I may as well upload it in the hope it’s useful to someone. Further sections may follow as and when I have the time and inclination to put them together.

There are a number of options available to anyone wanting to try macro photography, from dedicated macro lenses to close-up filters. In this section I’ll cover the main methods and consider the pros and cons of each.

I think the info is all accurate, but I’ll be happy to be corrected if I have messed up on anything! I have tried to make this relevant to all makes and models of camera but there may be a small amount of Canon bias!

Macro Lenses:

Perhaps the most obvious option, a true macro lens provides a magnification of 1:1 (basically 1x magnification). Some zoom lenses claim to have macro capability, although this is generally at a ratio of 1:2. The most powerful macro lens readily available is the Canon MPE-65 which offers a range of magnifications from 1:1 right up to 5:1 (5x magnification). Macro lenses are available at a variety of focal lengths, starting at around 50mm and going up to around 200mm. The main difference between these is the working distance; the longer the focal length, the greater the working distance. Generally anything around the 50-60mm range is considered most suitable for product shoots – basically anything you need to get close to but isn’t going to move. For insects anything from around the 90mm mark is going to be suitable. Whilst a lenses such as the Canon 180mm or Sigma 150mm are going to give you even more working distance than something like the Tamron 90mm, Canon100mm, or Sigma 105mm, their extra weight makes them a bit more cumbersome and a bit harder to use handheld.

Pros: Probably the most versatile and easy to use option, almost all the well known models offer stunning image quality.

Cons: Pricey

Extension tubes:

These are hollow tubes that fit in behind a lens to take the glass further away from the sensor, effectively increasing the magnification. Because there's no glass in them there’s no loss of quality, but you do lose a couple of stops of light with the full set on. The other trade off is that you lose the ability to focus to infinity. Given you're using them to try and get as close as possible, that's not really too much of a problem most of the time, but there are occasions where it can be a little annoying.

You can use these in two ways. Combined with a true 1:1 macro lens (such as the Canon 100mm macro) a full set of Kenko (a popular make) tubes will give you anything up to a ratio of around 2:1 (2x magnification). You can use them with non-macro lenses as well to increase the magnification. The ratio achieved obviously depends both on the type of tubes and the lens used, but a full set of Kenko tubes combined with most lenses will achieve a ration of around 1:1 (i.e. the same as a macro lens)

When it comes to makes, there are a few options. Probably the most common are made by Kenko. They're fully automatic and cost just shy of £100 off ebay for a set of three. They have electrical contacts in them so you are still able to use auto-focus and change the aperture setting easily.

You can get ones that aren't automatic for a lot cheaper (as little as around £10) but you lose the auto-focus (really not a concern with for most macro work as you will be focussing manually anyway) and the ability to easily change aperture (this isn’t relevant for users of lenses that have manual aperture control rings). This may not sound like much of a problem, but imagine this: you’ve got your kit, complete with extension tubes set up and your (incredibly rare) subject in focus. You take the shot. It’s nice, but you need a bit more depth of field to make it stunning. With a set of automatic tubes, changing the aperture is as easy as it always is, you’re done in maybe a second or two and then you’re ready to go again. With manual extension tubes the process is a little more time consuming. You have to take out the tubes, put the lens on the camera, change the aperture setting, take the lens off without turning off the camera, put the tubes back on and then the lens. By the time you’ve done this, your subject has probably got bored and wandered off.

Both Canon and Nikon make their own brand extension tubes, but these are considerably more than the Kenko tubes but offer the same level of functionality.

Pros: (Relatively) cheap, used with a good lens offer good image quality, a good way to achieve higher magnifications with a standard macro lens.

Cons: Only as good as the lens you use them with, can cost you a couple of stops of light, you lose the ability to focus to infinity, cheaper, non-automatic tubes are very limited in the functionality.

Close-up filters:

These screw on to the end of any lens and enable it to focus closer than it otherwise would. They decrease the minimum distance that a lens requires to focus, the obvious disadvantage with this being it reduces the working distance you have. They are available in a variety of strengths to allow different levels of magnification and can be used separately or stacked, depending on the level of closeness required.

Pros: Cheap

Cons: Image quality may suffer with loss of sharpness and distortion both common problems. Small working distance and inaccurate auto-focus may also become problems.

Raynox DCR-250:

Similar in many ways to close-up filters, but different enough to warrant a separate mention, the Raynox is another popular tool in the world of budget macro. Marketed as a “super macro conversion lens”, it’s basically a magnifying glass that screws on to the end of any lens with a filter size of 52-67mm. Reviews and sample images show it to be capable of producing good quality results, although, as with all the solutions (with the obvious exception of a dedicated macro lens), a large part of the quality of the results will be down to the quality of the lens it’s attached to. Different people seem to offer different opinions of how easy it is to get to grips with, but there’s no doubt, used properly, it’s a very capable product.

Pros: Cheap, image quality is good

Cons: can lead to problems with vignetting, small DOF, working distance can be very small to achieve high magnification.

Reversed lens:

Using a reversed lens is a technique I decided against out fairly early on, so my knowledge about it is (even more) limited. There are a couple of methods of employing this technique but the most common set up is to mount a lens the wrong way round in front of a lens the right way round and attaché to your camera. The first, reversed lens magnifies the image, the second lens then brings the image to the right size to fill the frame.

Pros: Assuming you already have two lenses, it effectively costs nothing, potential for good results

Cons: Tricky to set up and fiddly to use, potential to damage a lens is very high, controlling aperture becomes very difficult, metering from the camera is likely to be inaccurate, no autofocus, possible problems with vignetting.

I think this covers at least the vast majority of the equipment that can be used in macro photography. Whilst each has it’s advantages and disadvantages, I think most people would agree that, if you have the budget, perhaps unsurprisingly a dedicated macro lens is the way to go. However, there is certainly a wide range of very capable budget options which give you the opportunity to try macro out before you make the decision on whether to spend big money on a lens.

Will talks about macro work and extension tubes

The tubes go in behind the lens to take the glass further away from the sensor which has the effect of increasing the magnification. Because there's no glass in them, they're just hollow there's no loss of quality, but you do lose a couple of stops of light with the full set on. The other trade off is that you lose the ability to focus to infinity, but TBH, given you're using them to try and get as close as possible, that's not really too much of a problem.

When it comes to makes, there are a few options. The ones I have are made by Kenko. They're fully automatic and cost just shy of £100 off ebay for the set of three. They have electrical contacts in them so you are still able to use auto-focus and change the aperture setting easily.
You can get ones that aren't automatic for a hell of a lot cheaper but you lose the auto-focus (really not a concern with macro, you should be focussing manually anyway) and if you want to change aperture you have to put the lens on the camera, change the aperture setting, take the lens off without turning off the camera, put the tubes on, put the lens back on. Every. Single. Time. Not ideal really
Canon also do their own extension tubes. They're apparently not very different from the auto Kenko ones, except for the fact they cost the same (if not more) for one as Kenko charge for a set of three...

Combined with a true 1:1 macro lens (such as the Canon 100mm macro) a full set of Kenko tubes will give you anything up to about 2x magnification. Any higher than that and it's going to be MPE-65 time TBH (special lens, gives up to 5x magnification). You can use them with non macro lenses as well to increase the magnification - a lot of people use a set of Kenko tubes with the nifty, which gives a fairly effective, cheap macro solution (maximum magnification is about 1x I believe, so the same as a standalone macro).

As far as lighting goes, the ideal for macro is some sort of ringflash/ dedicated dual flash set up. Whilst a lot of people do use ringflashes, I've heard a lot of bad things about them, mainly related to the fact that they produce a very harsh light that is very difficult to diffuse (mainly due to the shape of the unit). I think the preferred method for serious Canon macro toggers is the MT-24EX which is a dual flash which fits at the end of the lens. Because it has two separate heads, rather than one continuous circle, it is much easier to control and diffuse. It's also very expensive though

Because I'm on a tight budget I'm stuck with my cheapy Yong-nuo 465 at the moment. With just the macro lens on, you can just about get away with having it on camera. With the tubes, it's just too far away and at the wrong angle to really be effective, so you have to get it off camera somehow. The preferred budget method (which is also used by a lot of people just using the macro lens with no tubes) is to get a ttl cable and a bracket that screws into the tripod hole of the camera and holds the flash nearer to the end of the lens. I haven't got round to getting one of these yet so I improvise.

As far as diffusers go, most macro toggers make their own, even if they are loosely based around an existing method. You can buy a variety of different types - there's the stofen type (which I use a slightly modified version of - I need to do a lot more work on it though) which is basically just a bit of frosted plastic that goes over the end of the flash. There's lambency/Gary Fong Lightsphere things, which are cone shaped and apparently quite effective. There's also a variety of mini-softboxes and the like. There's quite an interesting thread in the macro section of Talk Photography with pictures of various set-ups people have made. Lots of bits of milk bottle and the like in there, used very creatively. Basically you need some type of diffuser just to avoid blowing out large parts of (normally quite highly reflective insects)

All my shots were done during the day. Most of the time, to get a decent depth of field with the macro stuff, you're going to want to shoot somewhere between about f8 and f16. Generally you'll use low ISO, if nothing else to try and keep noise as low as possible, and a reasonably quick shutter speed (I tend to go no lower than 1/100) which means you have to use quite strong flash just to get enough light. At those settings you're basically going to knock out any ambient light which is why so much macro stuff has black backgrounds. For a lot of stuff it van be very effective. A lot of my moth shots, for example, were taken about 8 or 9 in the morning, but knocking out the background makes it look like they were taken in the dead of night. If you want to avoid it, you'll have to put something close in the background so it gets included in the shot. I know some people put large leaves or even coloured card in the background to give an out of focus green background, rather than a completely black background.

The only other essential part of my set up is a tripod. You can just about get away without one with the macro lens on its own, but with the tubes, it really is absolutely essential.

I think that pretty much covers everything, if there is anything else, just ask

I'll take a photo of my kit next time I've got it all set up


Edit: bloody hell, that's long as the actress said to the bishop

I explain why ND Grads are good

When you're doing landscapes you'll notice that the sky is always, ALWAYS brighter than the ground. Now, each camera has something called a 'dynamic range' - this is basically the amount of stops between dark and light that the camera can record. If you've got a budget camera then the dynamic range will be smaller than a really good camera which would have a larger dynamic range.

What does this mean? Well, you or your camera will meter for the conditions it sees. If you're using spot metering then if you meter off a dark area then the dynamic range thing means that the lighter areas are likely to blow out (not contain any information). If you meter off a light area then you may find that your dark areas contain no data whatsoever. The normal evaluative metering tries to get an average of the whole scene - this may mean your light areas blow out, and your dark areas contain no detail - but it's usually the best compromise.

So - practical example for you to try. Tomorrow, get your camera and put it in spot metering mode. ISO 100, f/8 and aperture priority. Aim at the sky and see what your shutter speed will be... I reckon quite high. Now, without changing any settings, aim at the ground and see what the shutter speed is. It WILL be much slower.

Right - so getting back to why you need grad filters. Basically, what you need to aim for is to get the whole scene within the dynamic range of your camera. The easiest way to do this is by darkening the sky. By using an ND grad, you slide it down in a holder in front of your lens, until the sky part is darkened to your satisfaction - you're aiming to get the sky and ground to around the same brightness so that your sensor can cope. Because grads only have the ND covering over half the filter (please don't bother with soft grads) it lets you darken the sky and bring it back into the dynamic range of your sensor - therefore you don't get blown out areas (or at least much fewer blown out areas), and the ground is exposed nicely and not too dark.

With solid ND's you're not really doing much except darkening the whole scene uniformly. Fine if all you want is to lengthen the exposure to create milky water, moving clouds etc., but to keep the detail in the sky and ground when doing sunrises / sunsets you'll be after a grad.

Lightroom Shortcuts by Supamatt

Most Used Lightroom Shortcuts

G - Library Module

In Library Module:
+/- change size of thumbnails
enter - maximise selected photo

D - Develop Module

Tab - Hide/Reveal Side bars
F5/f6 - Hide/Reveal Top and Bottom Bar

L - Dim the lights

X - Flag as Rejected
P - Flag as Picked

F - Full page (removes windows taskbar) Press twice for full screen

JT reiterates the reciprocal focus length rule thing...

i'm assuming that you're using a cropped sensor camera as well - so that 1/50 would be even less, you're probably looking to keep it to a min of 1/70 seconds at 50mm on a cropped sensor to get rif of camera shake, a s arule of thumb.

also it looks like it's focussed well, just on the nose and eye as opposed to the whole eye - at 50mm and 1.8 you've not got a lot of room to manouvre - do you have variable focus points that you can control through a d pad on the camera? if so manually move the focus point to over the eye and it should work fine.

The Reverend JT talks lenses...

ultrawide-wide - usually from 8mm to about 24mm - 8mm you are looking at almost 180 degrees of view from the front of your lens. even make close up things look quite far away. emphasises perspective

'normal' range - mid telephoto lenses - from 24mm to around 70mm, 50mm (in old 35mm or full frame format) is what the eye sees - so makes the shots look very natural as that is how you are used to seeing things.

telephoto zooms - from 70mm upwards - makes things very far away appear to be very close. squashes perspective.

an 18 - 200mm is a very versatile lens!


Macro lenses make the subject appear in a 1:1 ratio, and focus super close.

tilt-shift lenses are used for architecture to straighten lines which bend through being ultra wide.

if you are using for film, i think you may have to focus yourself which may be quite difficult, i'm not 100% sure though