macro photography
Happy Valentine's Day to you. The month of, or the day of Love. For lovers we go out to eat with the one we love. But what does a photographer love? Shooting pictures is what I love to do. I wanted to take some time and do some macro photography along with the product. What better than my wedding band? The setup was easy; I used constant light. I use my Canon R5 with a 90mm macro lens on a tripod. I decided to do focus stacking, and here is what I came up with.
Wedding Band
Everything has a beginning, and everything will have an end. Nature has away with this. I bought my wife back in December a Poinsettia Plant. The plant is doing great today, but leaves are starting to fall off and thus the end. I looked at the light shining on this leaf that fell and thought, “I wonder what this would look like as a closeup.” The light shining on the backside showed me the life of this leaf. I know, crazy, but sometimes I think this way.
I made a choice to make it black and white because the color did not help or add to the picture. I wanted to show the life of this leaf at one time. Using a macro lens, I set up using window light and then took the picture. It's incredible how we walk past this beauty, or in some cases, it's a dead leaf, throw it away to a photographer, and its documentation ends with a memory.
As my business continues to change, so does my learning. This time I wanted to learn more about being better with macro photography. I use this a lot for product and food shooting. I recently attended a workshop put on by Roberts Camera in Indianapolis, In. If you never went to a workshop and you are a photographer who wants to take it to the next level, you should. Not only the learning but other photographers that you will be interacting with. At this workshop, we had a 2-hour talk about idea settings and sharpness.
Next, we got a chance to work for 6 hours in about 20 different setups to practice what we learned. We learned about stack focusing, stack focusing software, using a tripod, which is a must for sharpness.
I took a lot of pictures this day, practicing what we learned. I filled up two cards of photos. I took pictures and retook pictures of a different composition of the subject. It was a day of fun. Oh yes, being a Midwestern, of course, I talked with other photographers that were there that day—so much fun to see and talk about once again. I am a big fan of education. Even when you think you know it, you can always learn. Who knows, you may make a new friend that does what you love.
