is one of the most essential elements. Let’s take a look at the picture on the left. The flower itself was in good condition, lighting at that moment was ok. Yet something is lacking when you look at the picture as a whole (might help if you see it in full size, click on it).

When you look at this picture, your eyes wanders, there’s no significant point of interest that points to the flower, instead some might see the bud behind the flower instead.

Continuing on, let’s look at the picture on the right, there are much to improve, first its focus didn’t feel right and the composition is a bit “messy”.There is nothing that guides the eye into an interesting point in this picture.

So here’s a few points to consider when taking macro pictures:

1. Play with you depth of field
2. Choose your focus point
3. Experiment with different angles

Clear focus point

This picture on the left (purple flower) is an example of clear focus point. In this picture I have chosen a very shallow depth of field, using around f 3.5. Notice that with the background blurred our eyes are drawn towards the flower and the sharpest part of the flower.

If you are confused or unsure which part of the flower to focus on, then focus on the flower’s filament. This is because when you focus it properly, it should add some crispness and a sense of detail to your image.

If in doubt, focus on the “filament” or the “pistil” of the flower as they look great when focused properly.

One of the example of such focus is this picture on the right. This picture is also an example of choosing an entire different angle and depth of field. So you see, to take an interesting picture you don’t have to have the full view of the flower.

Another important thing to consider to help with the composition is portrait format. By nature, a single flower is “tall”, hence like taking a person’s photo, it is easier to take it with portrait format as oppose to landscape.

If in doubt, try portrait (vertical) format.

Those tips on taking pictures of macro flowers can also be applied to different objects such as insects or even leaves. The most important thing to do is to experiment and think about what you want to show from your shot. The point of interest, depth of field, portrait vs landscape, different angles and lots and lots of shots (most of us shoot digitally anyway).

Here’s some more example to give you some ideas! Stay tuned for the next post, i’ll post in some equipments that we can use to do  macro photography.

insect shot (click for full view)

different take on leaves

yet another different angle