Lesson 4 - Photography lessons for kids

MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY

Taken by Dempsey - 4 years old

Macro photography is the art of taking close up pictures that often reveals details that you don’t notice from a distance or with the naked eye.
The macro setting on cameras will likely be a flower symbol on the camera dial or screen menu.  If you don't have this, just use your auto mode.
Some cameras / lenses will be able to get closer than others depending on their focal length. (More on focal length in another lesson).  There are special macro lenses you can buy if you find you really like macro photography.

TIPS

•  Make sure that the important part of the subject is in focus.
• The closer you are to the subject,  the smaller  the amount will be in focus, (called a narrow  or shallow depth of field).
• Be aware of what your background is doing, we want the subject to stand out, ( e.g blending colours or too many textures in the background might obscure the object  being photographed.)

 

MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGE

Take 5 close up photos of 5 different things.  Look for things you may not always notice, like small insects or textures.
Here are some past student examples:

Taken by Forrest aged 14 years

Taken by Michael aged 14 years

Taken by Aimee aged 14 years

ADDITIONAL  MACRO PHOTO CHALLENGE FOR DSLR USERS

If you have removable camera lenses, try these Macro experiments:
 
FIRST EXPERIMENT – ONE CAMERA LENS

• Turn your lens around and hold it back to front on the camera.  Your lens will now be more macro; you can still take a photo just holding it in place and moving your camera back and forth until your subject is in focus.

 
SECOND EXPERIMENT – TWO CAMERA LENSES

• Turn camera into aperture priority mode (AV).

• The 2 lenses must be set to manual focus.
• Put the longer zoom lens on the camera.  
• Look on the outside of lens to find the focal length settings. Set the zoom on the lens to between 80-100mm focal length and have it focused on infinity ‘8’ symbol or to the left.
• Set the smaller zoom to 50mm focal length and have it also focused to infinity.
• Now with a strong tape, attach the small lens to the longer lens, face to face.  
• Mount your camera on a tripod for stability.
• Find a subject to photograph
• To focus, move the camera in towards the subject, don’t try and focus by turning the lens or using auto focus.
• The front of the lens will need to be about 3-4 cms away from the subject.
• The lenses will now create a more powerful macro lens.

 
 Here is a link to a good 2 lens macro tutorial:   CLICK HERE

Flipped 50mm lens photo of a daisy

Flipped 50mm lens photo of frost