The veins of a fragile leaf, the nuanced hues of a flower-stalk, the textures of a frog’s skin, the breathtaking details of the human eye… if you have been fascinated by the incredibly intricate details of the world and how they are captured in photographs, you already know what this week’s Toecabulary is about – Macro lenses.
Macro photography allows us to shoot close-up, giving us beautifully-narrowed perspective into minutest details of the subject we choose to photograph. With a macro lens, a photographer can capture tremendous, subtlest of details that the human eye can otherwise miss. Watch this space today for photos of some stunning things of nature captured using macro lenses.
Made to magnify small subjects, a macro lens enables us to see what we cannot with our naked eye. Here is the gorgeous pattern of leaf-veins, like golden brocade on a dark fabric, a delightful intricacy the human eye could have missed if not for the macro lens. Shot at f/4, this photo intensifies the minute detail of the thin leaf – a thing of beauty thus created using a macro lens.
As compared to the thin leaf in the previous post, this lovely grasshopper is a thicker subject and is thus shot with a smaller aperture of f/7.1, with a fast shutter speed (to also avoid shaking for a handheld shot such as this). The grasshopper is hence photographed with all the little details it carries on its skin – a beautiful moment of stillness framed before its next hop.
Here is a creature of poignant glory, all its tiny little physical features captured with a macro lens at f/14. This subject is bigger than the leaf and the grasshopper we talked about in the previous two posts, and hence a smaller aperture is used to gather clearly the details of the cicada.
There is a whole universe that a photographer can explore through macro photography. The next time, when you go out to explore the little creatures inhabiting the Earth, go crazy with your macro lens! We wish you a world of joy that this genre of photography can bring.
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Imparting photography knowledge that eventually increases our attention and love for various details of life on this planet is at the heart of everything we do at Toehold. If you are a photography enthusiast and are interested in learning photography methodically from our ace photographers, explore our Photography Workshops and other related courses at Toehold Academy, or if you want to harness your skills and get mentored by our team of extraordinary photographers on the field, in real-time on our Photography Tours to destinations across India and abroad, explore our Photography Travel offerings.
