Tips To Create Macro Photography - Focus, Detail and Sharpness

The last article I published was talking about Depth of Field which give you an area to set your focus point. And now, through this article I will explain how and where you should place you focus point.

Focus In The Eye
No matter what the object is, humans, animal, or insects, there is a common principle that always put in photographers' mind, always put your focus point in the object's eyes. No matter how shallow DOF you get, always find DOF area in the eye. Why should eyes? Some people says, through eyes one's heart can be seen. And so in photography, focus in the object's eye will give the object's passion and expression to the audience.

In Macro Photography, when you took a picture of an insect, find the characteristics and texture of its eyes, once you've found it, then it will be easy to shoot and focus in its eyes.

Focus in the object's eyes increase the "feel" on an image, and also make it so alive

Fast Speed
Macro Photography always deals with an object in tiny size. Usually my object only 5mm to 2 cm only in length, thus every movement you make, even only 1mm only, will give a big impact to the picture. To prevent any movement effect on the picture, such as shaking or blur picture, then fast speed shutter should be used. Fast speed can freeze the object and capture the moment in a focus and sharp picture (depends on how well you maintain the DOF area). I usually use 1/100 seconds as maximum speed while taking macro picture.
How I use fast speed when the aperture I set was so small? Use your flash. Flash can enlighten the object even you set the aperture small enough and the speed fast enough. I will explain how to use flash in next sub-topic.

Flash and Diffuser
Flash can help macro photographer enlighten the object. But, bare flash can't be used to macro photography. Since, the distance between object and camera is so close, the flash light will be harsh enough to destroy the image, detail and sharpness will be vanished from your image. Then how should I use my flash? You can use diffuser to cover up your flash. Diffuser is a cover to bounce the lighting, so the light from the flash fall to the object in a mild way.
You can buy diffuser from camera store, or you can make it at home. I made one of it, and always use it whenever I take macro photograph.

I made the diffuser from tissue box, and wrapped it with paper. And to place it on the camera, I made a hole below the diffuser and the flash built-in can be inserted through that hole. By using this diffuser, the light from the flash is bounced and diffused to another area. And in the end, you can get the detail and sharp image.

Harsh lighting reduced detail and sharpness on the face. Use diffuser to prevent harsh lighting

Use Manual Focus
Set your lens to manual instead of auto. Using auto focus, push the lens to hunt focus point that will be hard to find. Close distance make the lens hard to find the focus, since there is minimum focus distance. To make it easy, just use manual focus and try to find your focus point by moving forward and backward. At first, it will be hard, especially when you always depends on auto focus before. But, with enough practices, you will somehow understand the characteristics of your lens and definitely will find focus point quicker than before. All of my macro picture is taken by manual focusing, and the results are so good.

Tripod or Monopod
The last thing to help you get focus, detail and sharp image is using tripod or monopod. For macro photography, I suggest to use monopod, because it can move more flexible than tripod. And it's better monopod with ball head, so you can move in a circle freely.

Tips To Create Macro Photography - Depth Of Field (DOF)

Depth of Field is some kind of space on the frame that give you the most focus and sharpness area. Depth of Field is influenced by 2 factors, Aperture and Magnification.

Aperture

Aperture is how much you open the hole in your lens, it shows as f/"value" in your camera. The wider it open the smaller the value, and vice versa. Aperture is used to control the amount of light that will enter to the camera. But beside that, aperture can also control the DOF area. The wider aperture (smaller f/value), more shallow DOF you will get. And the smaller aperture (bigger f/value), the deeper DOF area you will get.

F/16, shallow DOF

F/22, deeper DOF

On first picture, F/16 was used, and the result is shallow DOF, you can see the backside of the wings. it has more blur area than the second picture. F/22 was used on the second picture, thus the more DOF area is taken. The second picture shows the backside of the wings is more sharpness than the first picture.

Magnification
Magnification in Macro Photography is a must. A macro picture should have at least 1:1 magnification ratio. It means, the length of the object taken on sensor has the same length with the real object. For example, if you take a coin with 10mm in diameter, then the coin's picture on sensor also has 10mm in diameter. That's what you call 1:1 magnification ratio.
Magnification depends on the distance between object and sensor. When you get closer to the object, then more magnified the sensor will take the object. Magnification and DOF has negative relationship. When you get the high magnification, then the result is you get shallow DOF, and vice versa. When you get less magnification, you will get deeper DOF.

Distance between object and lens is about 15cm. Picture was taken using macro lens Nikkor 85mm Micro

Distance between object and lens is about 5cm. Picture was taken using macro lens added by close up filter +10

How to Control DOF

After you know what are the factors that influence DOF, then you can control how deep DOF you want to get. In Macro photography, detail, focus and sharp picture is essential. Then, controlling DOF is an important thing you should do while taking Macro picture.
Since magnification is essential in Macro Photography, then the one you can control is Aperture. I usually use F/8 or smaller (bigger F/value), depends on the angle of the object. When you take the angle from the side of the object, then F/8 until F/10 is enough. But when you take the angle from the front or from the face of the object, F/13 or smaller is used.
What if the picture I get become under exposure? You can use built-in flash or external flash. By using flash, you can control DOF easily by changing the value of aperture, and you still can use fast speed on your shutter.
One more thing while using flash, don't forget to use flash diffuser to prevent harsh lighting over your object. Harsh lighting will reduce detail and sharpness of the object

First Time Using Nikkor AF-S 85mm F/3.5 Micro

Yuhuuuuuuu,,,, I just bought a macro lens for my DSLR. And it feels strange when using macro lens. I don't know if it is from the macro effect or the longer focal length effect, but i feel the object is bigger than when i used my kit lens 18-55mm. oh by the way, I bought Nikkor AF-S 85mm F/3.5 Micro a my new lens. It just feel excited since I always dream about having macro lens as my second lens, and now I have it on my hand. Yeaahhh...

AF-S 85mm f/3.5G DX VR Micro ED

First time I used it, wooowwww.. no wonder Nikon gave a mark for this lens as macro lens, I tested it on a pen to capture the brand of it and it was magnified. I felt surprised when I saw the result, and now I always want to take a macro picture with it.

Beside the magnification, the one I feel different is the shaking effect. It is sooo difficult to handle cause when your hand or your body shaking, the object in the viewfinder also moving and since it is magnified, the effect is so much bigger than how it actually happens.
 
These are the sample of my picture that taken by Nikkor AF-S 85mm F/3.5 Micro. I still learn how to handle it, I hope all of you can enjoy it.

Link Website Bagi Yang Mau Belajar Photography

Baru mulai hobby photography semenjak February 2012, sampe sekarang masih getol jepret sana jepret sini. Tapi namanya juga masih anak kemarin sore, hasil jepretannya juga masih amburadul. Walhasil masih banyak yang harus ane pelajari nih. Khususnya karena aliran ane Macrophotography, ane jadi harus belajar soal-soal manual fokus lah, DOF, sampe ke angle of view segala. tapi emang ntuh sih inti dari photography.

Biasanya ane baca-baca aja di website, mulai dari website orang bule sampe website dalam negeri yang komunitasnya aje gile.

Nih ane bagi-bagi link-link yang biasa ane buka:
dpreview.com
nikonians.org
fotografer.net
kenrockwell.com

Itu aja yang biasa ane buka. Soalnya udah cukup lengkap lah di situ, tapi gak tau juga lah kalo ada yang lebih lengkap lagi. Mungkin ada yang bisa menambahkan lagi dari para pembaca, silahkan ditambahin. Ane jadi bisa lebih banyak belajar lagi nanti. Salam jepret!!!

Hobby Macrophotography

Masih dengan hobi baru gue yang tiba-tiba muncul. Iseng-iseng ikutan temen beli kamera, akhirnya malah jadi kesenengan. Dari cuma liat-liat foto-foto, sampe akhirnya ngambil fotonya ndiri. Dan untuk menciptakan warna diantara yang lainnya, gue mencoba untuk berbeda dari yang lain untuk aliran fotografinya. Biasanya yang lain seneng ngambil gambar pemandangan yang indah-indah (jadi inget senior yang cantik jelita namanya "Indah" :DDD) sampe model-model cantik yang seksi dan bikin jantung berdebar-debar. Tapi gue malah seneng liat yang kecil-kecil untuk dijadikan objek foto. Dari semut yang lagi kejar-kejaran, sampe lalet yang lagi kawin pun gk lepas dari jepretan kamera gue. Serunya adalah teknik yang dipakai pun harus lain daripada yang lain, mulai dari fokus yang harus manual, sampe harus nahan napas dan nahan tangan biar gk "buyutan" kalo kata temen gue. Kenapa sampe harus nahan napas segala? Karena kalo objek foto yang besar-besar, begitu kita bergerak sedikit, tidak begitu terasa. Istilahnya ketika benda 1 meter hanya bergeser 1 mm saja, mana berasa buuunngg.. Tapi ketika kita berhadapan dengan objek yang hanya sebesar 3 mm saja, maka ketika si objek bergerak 1 mm, rasanya dunia mau kiamat. Udah nahan napas lama-lama, ketika dijepret, eehhhhhh malah jadi goyang. Abis itu pasti langsung teriak KAMPREEEETTTTT.......

Nah, aliran foto yang itu namanya Macrophotography (bener gk ya itu salah satu alirannya??)

Semenjak gue pegang kamera, mata gue selalu was-was. Kalo pake istilah fotografi, bukaan aperturenya itu bisa sampe f1, artinya terbuka lebar-lebaaaarr untuk ngeliat si kecil-kecil. Biasanya objek foto yang gue ambil ya sekitar semut, lalet, lebah, kupu-kupu, gk jauh lah dari serangga-serangga yang ada di mess gue. Maklumlah, gue bukan orang yang punya jabatan di kantor gue, jadi ya gk dikasih kendaraan untuk jalan-jalan. Kalo yang dikasih kendaraan yaaaa.... sukanya ngelayap kalo off

Kenapa sih sukanya sama yang kecil-kecil sih Ga? Karena gue orangnya penasaran. Penasaran sama yang kecil-kecil itu kaya gimana sih bentuknya. Jadi setelah bisa gue jepret dan gue abadikan dengan kamera gue, jadi keliatan bahwa ternyata Allah swt. itu suuunggguuuuuuuhhhhh Maha Kuasa. Dari semut yang kita gk pernah liat dan gk pernah perduli kaya gimana tuh mukanya, jadi bisa keliatan. Sampe lalet yang biasanya bikin kita jijik dan langsung aja disemprot pake obat nyamuk pas terbang-terbangan deket makanan, jadinya malah terlihat lebih indah dan menarik. Itulah yang bikin gue jadi makin penasaran dengan dunia liliput ini. Ujung-ujungnya sih mudah-mudahan bisa bikin gue makin merasa bahwa kita itu cuma makhluk kecil di hadapan Allah yang Maha Esa.

Kalo mau liat hasil foto-foto gue, bisa nih diliat di bawah.
Tapi masih rada jelek lah ya. Soalnya masih pake lensa kit doank, tanpa ada aksesoris lainnya, jadi masih dicrop-crop dikit lah. Ohiya kamera yang gue pake cuma Nikon D5100, dan masih mau gue "perkosa" lagi nih kamera untuk moto yang kecil-kecil macam begini

Yang ini lagi berjemur ngeringin sayapnya nih

Lagi galau, menyendiri aja jadinya

Kalo yang ini lagi asik nih, jangan diganggu ya

"Jangan dipoto donk, lagi berjemur nih"

"Kejar aku donk sayang"

Ciluukk baaa....

Ta' gendong kemana-mana

Sarapan dulu aahhhh

Gimana gayaku, oke gak?

Cari sarapan dulu, sluurrppp....

New Life for Ega Mada

Fiuuhh.. I think it took 3 months just to finish another posting on my blog. It's getting busy and busy everyday. So I forgot to write some story.

For the past 3 months, there are looottttsss of changing in my life. Not just hobby, but also a place to live. I just discover another activity for my hobby, it's photography. Nowadays, I am  being crazy about taking picture of anything beautiful, flowers, insects, bugs, birds, etc. I chase them just to make a picture of them. And i really love my new hobby. Here are some picture that I took a few weeks ago. Any comment? Just give it a shot.

Beside my hobby, I just got moved to a new place to stay, my new dormitory, Building N at Lati Mine Operation, Berau. I have to share my room with one of my colleague. My room isn't so small at all, but not too big so anyone can enter my room. Just good enough for me to stay as long as I live here. I hope my new room give me new spirit and also new life to live.