5 Macro Projects You Can Do at Home

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here in collaboration with Venus Optics, Laula lenses
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and to look at the reality of where we're at right now. And I recognize that a lot of you, like myself, have been dealing with a changed world over the last five or six weeks due to the pandemic, COVID-19
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So as a result, a lot of you have spent a lot more time indoors than what you're typically
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accustomed to. And so during the discussion and trying to adjust to some of the changes, we begin to kick
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around ideas and Venus Optics had the idea of doing a series of live streams where various
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people like myself and other reviewers and photographers talk about macro photography in particular
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Reason for that is that macro photography is really one of the things. the easiest types of photography to engage in when you're working with limited space
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The whole idea of macro photography is that rather than looking at the big picture and
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trying to look at all the details, you're trying to isolate the details on something small
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And while focusing into that little world, it's something that actually works in a small
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amount of space as opposed to dealing with a large amount of space
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Now my particular topic that I'm going to be sharing, and so I'm recording this video
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so I can better demonstrate some of the things that I'm talking about with a little more versatility
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and then as a part of the live stream, we'll be sharing this video, but then also I'll be answering
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questions and engaging with the audience. But I wanted to record this also to share here on my own
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channel, maybe to give you some ideas. So my theme is looking at five different types of projects
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you can do at home. And so looking specifically at macro photography, but also macro photography
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that you can do within your home. So of course, I'm a gear guy
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And so first, let me just take a couple of moments to talk to you about gear
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So when it comes to macro lenses, there are a few different approaches here
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So some of you I recognize are on a very tight budget, and it may be that you can't afford
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a macro lens. I will say that if you are shooting mirrorless APSC and you have a limited
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budget, this particular lens from Lawa, which I reviewed back about six weeks to two months ago
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And you can check out my review here. And so I will say that while right now I am working in collaboration with Lawa on this particular project
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at the same time when I did a review of this lens, none of this was in the works
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And so you can go back and look at my unfiltered remarks in regards to this lens
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But I was very, very enthusiastic about this lens. It is, I think, maybe the sharpest APSC lens that I've ever tested
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It is an amazingly sharp lens for macro as well. And so it's allowed with 65 millimeter F2.8
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This is not only a one times macro, it is a two times macro, which means that rather than getting this degree of magnification
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you can in fact get this degree of magnification, which opens up even more possibilities as a part of that
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This lens is also an aprochromatic design, and that becomes really important depending on what type of project you're doing
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doing. Apricomatic means that rather than having two different color channels focus simultaneously
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as is typically the case with most lenses, you actually have three different color channels
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all converging at the same space, which means you almost completely eliminate any kind of
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longitudinal chromatic aberration. That shows up as typically as a purple fringing before the
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plane of focus and then a green fringing after the plane of focus. Now when you're looking at macro levels
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any kind of aberration is going to occupy more pixels because everything is magnified
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And so particularly with some topics, and we'll talk a little bit more about this in a moment
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but if you're shooting coins, for example, and I've got a, for a long time
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ever since I've been a kid, I've had a coin collection of currency from around the world
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I don't know that any of it is particularly valuable, but it's just interesting to me
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And it's become a great subject for doing macro that whenever I test macro lenses
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I pull out some of these coins just because, you know, they're unique and there's some amazing details that show up
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But if you're doing macro with some kind of shiny metallic object or a camera is another thing that I'll talk about
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those chromatic aberrations tend to really, really show up. And so that's why aprochromatic is important
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So if you're on a budget, either this lens, the 65 millimeter F2.8
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also there is basically the full frame version of this lens, which is a hundred
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millimeter F2.8, also a two times, also aprochromatic from Lawa that's a little bit more expensive
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but very inexpensive compared to a lot of the competing options. And so by the way, I own four
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macro lenses. Two of the ones that I own are aprochromatic designs because it is a big deal
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particularly for some kinds of photography. Now, if your budget doesn't run that far
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you can't even afford a new lens, a way that is, it's not as good, but it can be
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also satisfactory for doing a lot of these projects is to experiment with what is
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called extension tubes. Now extension tubes essentially what they're doing is that they are moving the lens further away from the sensor. So it's basically just a
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spacer that goes in there but it's designed to where everything still bayonets
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onto your camera. But as you increase the distance of the lens from the sensor it
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allows a lens to focus down closer and closer though at the expense of infinity focus So what you gaining on the macro lens level you losing on the infinity level And so it obviously not as versatile for that reason as a pure macro lens
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However, you can get some really interesting shots using extension tubes, something that I've done in the past experimenting with as well
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And so, you know, there's a little bit of the gear talk aside for you. So let's talk about a few of these different types of photography
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We might as well start with the money since I've already discussed that
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So one of the things about if you're using money around, one of the reasons that money is interesting
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is that number one, particularly if you're using a local currency, it is something that is familiar to your audience
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And so they have all seen the coin. They've probably almost never seen it up close
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And so most people have no idea that at a macro level, you can actually see little spurs in the metal
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And you can see some of these details that pop up that people are unaware that are there
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And in some cases, not just with coins, but I also find with bills, it's remarkable the detail that's there in these familiar objects
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And so part of the reason why I find, you know, doing coins as being interesting is the fact of that familiarity and yet it's an unfamiliar perspective on it
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Perspective is important when you're doing macro. One, often one of the least engaging perspectives is the perspective of myself
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You know, I'm six foot one. Looking down at something is rarely an interesting perspective for any kind of photography, but
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particularly for macro photography. You tend to get, you know, something very, very flat
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And if your goal is to get everything in focus, the whole, you know, face of the coin in focus
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great. But often, you know, the advantage of macro that even if you're in a tight space, your apartment
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or your house that, and you may not even have a great background
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Macro, when you're focusing down that close at macro levels, the backgrounds beyond very quickly
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Depth of field is really tiny. So everything beyond there tends to completely disappear anyway
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And so creating bocah, blurred out areas, and allowing, you know, some like, for example, in this shot, having the thin edge of the coin showing
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with everything else fading away to defocus is a really, really engaging approach
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And so try experimenting with something you have on hand. Hopefully, you know, isolation has not been going on so long that you have no money in the house
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But if you do have some money, have some fun with it, take some pictures of it
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It's a great macro subject. And so that is worth taking a look
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Now, let me just pause there and talk to you about what you can do about background
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So one of the interesting things that is that bubble wrap like this, you'll see as I'm holding it up and I've got light on myself
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you'll see that there are different kind of, you know, bright points on the bubble wrap
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So what you can do that's really interesting is to set this up behind a macro subject
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But what I've done is I've set this up. And so it has light that reflects
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It allows like bocha highlights, circles to emerge behind there. It also can cover up a busier background
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And so it's a, you know, it's basically a free thing. You might have some on hand already or dig around in your garbage out of a package
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and pull some out, but it can make for a really intriguing background and cost you literally nothing
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Another thing that is interesting to have access to is a reflector
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And a lot of reflectors, you know, for example, this one has multiple options in it
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And so it's a reflector that you can flip this around and you can get a gold side
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You can get a silver side. You can use it on the white or in this case as the black
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Now, what's interesting about this is that you can have a lot of different options for your setup just by using this
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And so you get a completely different photo by placing an object and shooting macro on a silvery surface
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then what you do on a gold surface, then what you do on a black or a white surface
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And so reflectors like this tend to not be incredibly expensive. And so it is an option to just give you some versatility
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And of course, it becomes handy for a lot of other type photography. What I'll often do for product photography is that, for example, you could stick a, I take a lot of photos of lenses, you know, for my lens reviews
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So a lot of times what I'm doing is just setting these, the lens on a camera, on a tripod, and actually just a few feet away having a solid black background of just one of these leaned up against a wall that creates a clean background, particularly if you use light correctly
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So let's transition on and talk about light for a minute. So light is obviously, you know, at the heart of photography in general
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And so, you know, as this series started off with Christopher Frost talking about macro photography
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and he talked about some, he talked about some lights as a part of that, macro ring type lights that mount around the lens
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You can use, you know, speed lights. You can use fix lights like this
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But in some cases, what you want is a gentle source of light
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You know, in some cases, high contrast is a bad. thing and so you don't want too much light too many reflective surfaces and so having a soft
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source of light is good having a you know ring lights can tend to be a fairly even nice
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light and so that's an option in some cases however you want the exact opposite so a soft light
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gives you even illumination and so that can be really really useful but in some cases you want
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harsh illumination because you want to be able to have a very bright amount of light on one
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one subject which is going to lead me to another project here and and by eliminating
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the background And so the project that I going to show I show you a few photos from this but I wanted to play with smoke with mist okay as a part of this And so I was just using you know looking and I actually used this lens for these shots
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But I was, my wife had this central oil diffuser going in our home
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And so an object that a lot of people have in their homes at this point. And so the mist is coming up
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And so I'm getting that effect. However, where it's sitting, I just shot these photos right here in my little
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living room that's behind me in the place where I'd never even move this it was in the place
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where my wife was using it but what I did is I set up the camera on a tripod I focused in the area
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that I wanted in advance and so I didn't have to worry about that and so in this case what I
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wanted was a very bright light of source or source of light just in the mist itself and so
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the water droplets the steam the vapor would be illuminated but the background would disappear
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because it was lit so much less and that's the amazing thing about light is that if you highlight light on a subject, the ambient light in the room
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tends to disappear. And so I shot this in the middle of the day. There was plenty of light in the
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room, but by putting a very intense flashlight through the steam coming up and then, you know
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adjusting my exposure. So it was just for that light. I was able to create some of these images
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that I think are really, really interesting, particularly if you, you know, you jump and you look
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at them at a detailed level. And so that, that, you know, you know, you get them. And so that. allows you to really get some incredibly unique type looks. I've done something similar for
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these shots here where I was actually shooting, I was shooting commercial photography for a maker
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of bike lights. And so I had mounted the light on the handlebar of my bicycle. And so what I did
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is I put a fairly intense amount of light. And so we were trying to illustrate not only that
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you know, that the light is bright. But in this case, I was trying to illustrate the fact that it was
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waterproof. And so, you know, you could be writing in weather and it still worked. And so what I did in
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that case is I had light going through the midst. I was focused on what I wanted to do with my
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macro lens. But then I, all I did to create the rain effect that you see in this is just right
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over the top of the shot. I had a little spray bottle. And I was just continually shooting just a
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spray falling over it. And so again, very simple to do in your own home, but by the use of light
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and then water in this case, I was able to create some really, really compelling looking in
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results. And so, you know, some things to experiment with in your own home. Easy to do. You don't
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have to purchase expensive accessories. You just need to understand a little bit about how light
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works. Now, if you are into cameras at all, camera lenses, camera gear, I think that this makes for
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really interesting photography subjects. And so that's one thing that I have always enjoyed doing
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is doing photography, particularly of some of these vintage cameras. And I'll have to be
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confessed that bellows types cameras are my favorite for this. For one thing, the very fact that
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you know, the bellows kinds of extends out gives you a really kind of visually interesting
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because you've got this. And like, for example, in this shot, I always felt like it kind of looked like a
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train bearing down on me and just you know it was it was really really cool but also in some of these
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old cameras the amount of detail in the metal work is really really quite exquisite particularly if
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you look at it at a macro type level and so it just gives you a lot of options of playing around
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I mean a lot of times you can find vintage cameras like this at pawn shops or secondhand stores
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yard sales, and pay next to nothing for them because, you know, for many people, they don't really
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have any value any longer, but they do make for really, really compelling photography subject
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macro subjects, and also lenses, catching the fine details of them, and playing with the way that you
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have light bounce off the coatings on the front element. All of those things can be really
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really intriguing. Another project that probably a lot of you have even maybe thought about
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before. It can be a little bit technically challenging to pull it off some time, but it is about the
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water droplet or milk droplet. And so, of course, when water or oil or milk strikes another subject
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it creates a lot of very interesting shapes. You have to catch them at the right moment
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obviously. And so to set up a shot like this, here's a few kind of tips. And so let me show you a
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couple of my end results here and then I'll give you a little bit of explanation about how I
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executed them. So with milk, what I like to do is to use, this is actually just a pet dish here for
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feeding pets. And so for one thing, you don't want to, for me, I don't want to waste a whole
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massive amount of milk. And so I want to contain it in a fairly small area. So I'll put a certain
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amount of milk into this dish. The fact that it is bright also means that there is some extra help
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in internal lighting because there's going to be reflections coming off of it
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So obviously in this case you're going to want a pre-focus, which again, you know
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if you're not using a manual focus macro lens, which in many cases, manual is really good for
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macro purposes. Your depth of field is so tiny at those focus distances. It can sometimes
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be hard to put a focus point where you want it. So even if you're using an autofocus lens
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particularly for this project, you're going to want to switch into manual focus and to pre-focus
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in the area where you want to be in focus. It will probably help to stop down your
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aperture to F5.6, F8, even F11. And so that will allow a little bit more to be in
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focus because it hard to precisely control where the water droplets or the milk is going to fall on every occasion And so good to get that up You want a source of light And you probably want the source of light coming from a similar direction
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where your camera is shooting. And so that it is, like for example, as a water droplet comes up
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if the source of the light is behind, what you'll actually get is lighting on the backside of where you're actually shooting
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And so you don't want that to be the case. And so it's good to have a light source. It's going to front illuminate
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and so you're going to capture better detail that way. I like using a little eye dropper like this
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for the simple reason that it gives you a little bit more precision over dropping the droplets of whatever you're dropping
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oil, water, milk, whatever. And so that can be beneficial because it'll allow you to regulate kind of the quantity
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You want to just release drops, not a steady stream. And then also you want to be able to try to drop it with precision
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It can actually be helpful in this case to have someone else participating in the project
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If not, if it's just you, probably the best thing to do is to set up your camera to where it's just going to continue to take a bunch of pictures
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Typically, you can set that up in advance, almost like a not quite like a time lapse
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You can set it up to take a burst of photos. And that's a good way to do it
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Either that, you're going to have to kind of keep your finger on the shutter button holding it down while it shoots all of the shots
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But in this case, it's going to be more about quantity rather than trying to time it
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It's such a split second at that impact. It's better to shoot as fast as your camera can on a burst mode
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and then go through it and choose the perfect moments that you've gotten
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And so this project can be really interesting. Now, let me take a look at this shot
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It's a beautiful water cram. And what I actually did in this, this is maybe the most simple of all
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I was shooting. What I used is a stainless steel sink, and you know which many cases there is a there's a window behind the sink and so it's getting some
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natural light and so I actually just used available light for this and what I did is I set the
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faucet onto a very slow drip and so then what I did is that I just shot the impact as those drips
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fell I would do a burst and I got some beautiful crowns by doing that and so you know there is
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another project that you can use with basically no additional accessories but you know it's just
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a little bit of patience and choosing the best shots. But you can get some really amazing looking
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photos by taking that approach. So one final project that I want to talk to you about is involving
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jewelry. And so again, taking a different look at something and getting onto a macro level
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allows you to do some unique things with jewelry. And so a lot of times, you know, wedding photographers
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will set up some really cool shots using shoes, rings, flowers, different things and
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junction with each other. And so obviously that can be, you know, you can get some really cool
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shots doing that in a wedding situation, but you don't have to be a wedding photographer to get
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some really, really amazing photos of, you know, some beloved family jewelry. And so in that case
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a lot of the techniques that I've already talked about are going to bear true there. But basically
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think about staging it. And here's, you know, a few shots, different ideas that I've used
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You can utilize books. That's a very popular shot, putting it in the pages of a book, you know, against shoes or other things
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You can really create some beautiful macro images by utilizing jewelry as a part of that
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So just be creative in your approach to that. Another popular thing can be the use of food as of that
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If you've got flowers in your home, you know, I've been accused in the past of buying flowers for my wife just so it gives me a photography subject
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the moment and so I don't think I'm actually guilty of that but I will confess
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that whenever I have flowers around I do take advantage of that particularly in
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winter when there's not a lot going on outside and so you know literally you are
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surrounded by all kinds of cool macro projects right now I've taken some
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really cool photos and really cool video of you know for example a light bulb
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turning on and you know and unfortunately the old incandescent bulbs are the
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best for that. I've taken some cool shots turning on the gas on a stove top for
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example and getting in close to those jets and that's really cool for video
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because it's you know just illuminates something that's that's very very again
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you don't see close up under usual circumstances and so literally all around
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you are some great great subjects for shooting macro photography. So if you're
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stuck at home right now and your creativity is desperate for an outlet
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macro photography can be the best way to indulge that moment, indulge that creativity
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and you can get some shots you can be really proud of. Outside of all of the great opportunities to go outside and to shoot flowers and to shoot insects
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and any number of other outside subjects, there are some great, great subjects inside as well
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I'm Dustin Abbott, and I hope that this has helped to give you some ideas to get your mind going
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of options that you can use in this moment to create some really, really cool images
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So I wish you the very best in your pursuit. Unleash that creativity and be sure to, if you haven't already, to check out the page
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I'll throw up here where you can see the live view. If you miss the live view, and you can see what happened as a part of that discussion there
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Look also in the description down below and you can find ways to follow me on social media
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to become a patron, to sign that for my newsletter. And if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button right here on YouTube
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Thanks for watching. Have a great day

5 Macro Projects You Can Do at Home

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5 Macro Projects You Can Do at Home

Dustin Abbott