Macro photography technology of insects

With the warming of the weather and the recovery of everything on earth, we will find that there are not only colorful flowers and plants around us, but also insects waving their wings all the time.

Gorgeous butterflies are flying among the flowers, mantis is preying in the grass, and dragonfly is resting on the lotus branch. These tiny insects have greatly attracted photographers to shoot them and feel the wonderful experience brought by the magical creativity of nature.

Insect photography should belong to macro photography. The purpose of macro photography is to show the details of the subject in detail, that is, the subject should be larger than or equal to the size of the original subject, and the professional magnification on the lens should be 1: 1.

Control the depth of field and focal plane to shoot clear insects.

As a macro lens, its depth of field is very small. When the lens magnification is 1: 1, the aperture is reduced to the minimum value of F22, and the depth of field is only 2mm. If the lens magnification is 1:2, the depth of field is only 6mm. Therefore, the slight movement of the lens and the subject will affect the final focus position, which is why most of the film friends reflect that I am clearly focusing on the bug, but only the flowers in the background are real and the bug is virtual. So I suggest you use a tripod. Conditional cinematographers can also cooperate with cable release to minimize focus drift caused by movement.

Secondly, when shooting insects, we should pay attention to the choice of focal plane. For example, when shooting a butterfly, if the wings of the butterfly are side by side on the back, the best shooting method is to adjust the camera position to make it parallel to the wing surface of the butterfly, so that all the details of the butterfly wings can be clearly displayed. We can create a depth of field without opening a small aperture, and we can also increase the shutter speed to ensure the success rate of shooting.

What we should remember is that no matter shooting from the front, side or even tail of the insect head, we must put the shooting content in a plane. The adjustment of depth of field and focal plane is a delicate process. Be patient and skillful, and don't let your "model" run away at last.

Show the details of insects with light.

In many photography textbooks, it is mentioned to avoid taking pictures in direct sunlight or when the light is strong at noon. On the one hand, if the light ratio is too large, the tolerance of digital camera sensor is relatively small, which will cause overexposure in the bright part or underexposure in the dark part and lose details. On the other hand, the direct light is very dazzling, which leads to the decrease of the color saturation of the subject and affects the overall effect of the film. These are also applicable to macro photography of insects. Macro photography must use soft light, that is, scattered light to produce the best effect, so that the whole picture can be evenly illuminated.

Sunlight shooting is the most common shooting method, which uses light to directly illuminate insects. We also mentioned before that we should pay attention to the toughness of light. If the light is very strong, we can put a soft cloth in front of the insect to achieve the effect of scattering light. We can use ordinary printing paper instead of sulfuric acid paper for art, of course, you can also choose the soft light in the morning and afternoon to shoot.

Sunlight photography can mainly show the grain, texture and color of insect surface, so insects with rich colors and beautiful grains are more suitable for sunlight photography. Such as ladybugs or beetles, it is easy to show the smooth texture of the shell by using light. The choice of camera metering should use evaluation metering, so don't do too much exposure compensation at this time.

In order to highlight the crystal clear feeling of insect wings, backlight is the best choice. Light passes through the object in front of the camera, and the edge of the insect's body can be brighter by using this light.

Backlight shooting, the background is usually very dark, which can better highlight the details of insects. For example, the fluff on bees is clearly outlined by the light when it is backlit. If you encounter a scene with a large light ratio, you should use a small reflector to fill the front of the main insect. Choosing reflectors with different colors will also change the local color, such as gold, which will produce warm colors. In the aspect of exposure selection, it is suggested that if the background is dark, the exposure compensation should be reduced appropriately to avoid the problem of full exposure.

The simple background sets off the insect theme.

When shooting insects, the choice of background is also very important. In order to make an excellent work, besides a clear insect theme, a simple background is also essential. The macro lens itself has a small depth of field, so it is not a problem that the blurred background highlights the subject. It can be achieved by increasing the distance between the background and the insects.

We will find that the background color is as simple as possible, and it must be different from the color of insects. For example, when shooting light-colored insects, it is necessary to choose a dark background, which can better highlight the subject. If the scene shooting environment is not what we want, we can also prepare a black cardboard and put it behind the insects as the background.

The strangeness of insects surprises us, but their smallness cannot be discovered by us. Through macro photography, with appropriate equipment and reasonable photography skills, small insects can be clearly presented to everyone through light and shadow, and feel the greatness of nature.

The above is what Bian Xiao shared about the macro photography skills of insects. For more information, you can pay attention to the global ivy and share more dry goods.