Macro photography is not for the casual shooter. It’s not something you do on the fly and do it successfully. Most people are snapshot photographers. Grab a camera, lock a macro lens on and start shooting a mass of pictures and cross their fingers without really understanding the art. No planning, no goal and very little preparation. Unfortunately that’s not the way it works if you want to create a masterpiece. Take a look at some of the best macros I’ve seen lately in the below link and try to figure out why they excel where others fail. Could you duplicate the results and why not? Do you understand all the principles involved? Notice the background, depth of field, composition, perspective, use of color and lighting and figure out why your pictures are falling short. At present, I have seen no one in the club that can take this quality of work, so I think its time to set our standards a little higher. I’m going to be starting a section in the forum called assignments where we will take a particular subject and try to advance our understanding of how a particular photo technique works. This may or may not be password protected (Members Only) in the future, we’ll just see how it goes. In the mean time, enjoy the photos. Here’s the link. I might add there are a lot of other subjects here to been enjoyed. Macro is just one of them.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/21/25-beautiful-macro-photography-shots-photos/


And a final note.
When ever I run across a website that has pictures that interest me such as this, I save them to my computer for later study. If I know Im going to be shooting a particular subject, it helps to prep before hand and study the saved images for the shoot. I then plan and equip myself with the necessary equipment. Basically, I know what I want to accomplish before I leave. I give myself a goal.
It’s simple enough to save them to my hard drive but in some cases its easier to snatch them from the screen. Some sites don’t allow saving and I find this method easier then saving because it ends up being faster in the long run. Anyway, I thought I would give you a little bonus for using the forum and turn you on to a little program I use to do just that. Its called HoverSnap (PC) and its free. It’s a great program, simple to operate and you just cant beat the price. Here’s the link.


http://www.snapfiles.com/get/hoversnap.html

See ya.
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Is mirror lock-up one of the keys to getting a better macro shot? I am under the impression that a tripod and a shutter release cable really helps. Also...there are some focus rails for this type shot..which are probably a good investment if you really enjoy macro shots.