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Lighting group sessions February 2026
Topic: Macro and Close-up Photography
What is macro photography?
How do macro lenses differ from standard lenses?
What are extension tubes?
- Extension tubes are an empty tube that goes between your camera and the lens to move the lens further from the image sensor. This lets you focus the lens at a closer distance to the subject but give a very shallow depth of field. They generally come in a set of varying sizes and can be stacked to increase the length. As there is a relationship between the length of the extension tube and the focal length of the lens they work better with shorter lenses.
- https://photofocus.com/photography/extension-tubes-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly/
What are teleconverters or extenders?
What are close up filters?
Note that you can also stack these 3 items above to increase magnification further
What are depth of field and focus challenges and how are they overcome?
- Work out how to magnify your view prior to taking the shot. I generally use the 5x magnification and manual focus.
- Turn on focus peaking on your camera so you can see which areas are in focus.
- Very shallow depth of field so shooting at small apertures might help - f16-f22. Note that this may also introduce diffraction which can degrade image sharpness.
- Focus stacking, check out whether you can do this in camera, if not then load your images into a post-processing software such as photoshop.
- https://digital-photography-school.com/a-beginners-guide-to-focus-stacking/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39zOwiG4sqk
What are the lighting challenges and how are they overcome?
- Generally macro photography uses very small apertures which restricts the light
- Use longer exposure times if subjects are not moving
- Add light
- Usually the lens is very close to the subject and may cast shadows with standard lighting setups.
- Use a macro ring flash on the front of your camera
- Buy a bracket assembly with multiple, low power flash units
- Light the subject from the side and/or top
- Use a light tent
- As in all photography, using flash can help freeze movement in your subjects.
Gear you might bring
- Camera, spare batteries, tripod, remote shutter release (can your phone do this?), 3 stop ND filter
- Macro lens or a lens that has a short focusing distance. Your phone or point and shoot cameras often have a macro function.
- Extension tubes, extenders, close up lenses, focusing rails
- Macro ring flash units, brackets to mount flash for macro photography, standard flash units that can be used off-camera, light box, gels or coloured LED lights, small reflectors, even a torch if you are desperate.
- A small subject or scene to photograph
- A subject or scene to photograph
- Backgrounds
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