Macro Photography using the Tamron 90mm & 180mm lenses. by Gregg Maniaci |
You don’t have to be a professional photographer to get stunning, fine art-like images. Take me for example. To say that I am a professonal photographer would be like calling a toothpaste commercial a fine film. And yet, as one can see from the photos here, the results I ended up with from my trip to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania were not too shabby. In fact, I still get surprised responses when people see some of the images I brought back as in, “You took that?” So let me share with you this miracle of digital imaging and perhaps give you some valuable information I accumulated the hard way – trial and error. I have heard it said that some people would rather be lucky than good. In photography, you really need a little of both. The most important thing to remember when setting out to capture images is this: What ever camera you use, the images are only as good as the lens you use. So having the right lens is many times half the battle. For this Longwood Gardens workshop I attended, I decided to bring my Tamron 90mm and 180mm Macro. I decided on these because they are true 1:1 macro lenses, meaning they offer the ability to record life size images of the subject in relation to the image sensor. What does that mean? Well, for those of us old enough to remember film, think of the sensor as the film negative. If you were to take a picture of a postage stamp at 1:1 macro, the image of the postage stamp would be the same size as the actual stamp. In determining a macro lenses maximum magnification, we never measure in terms of print size because, as we all know, prints can be blown up to any size. It’s the size of the original image that matters here. The larger your original image is, the more detail can be recorded. And it is for this detail that I chose the Tamron 1:1 macros. Remember I said sometimes it is good to be good and lucky? Well, when shooting outdoors, one of those reasons for luck is weather. And of course, it rained most of this day, so most of my time there was spent inside the truly astounding greenhouses of Longwood Gardens. And while some may say rain is typically bad luck, in my case, I would not have the images printed in this article had it been sunny out. The orchids I found were part of an exhibit that was going on at the time. Had the weather been better, I might have spent less time approaching the orchids, and certainly would not have gotten the images you see here. At first I tried all different techniques. Hand-held with flash, longer exposures on a tripod without flash, even some bold, ill-fated attempts to shoot hand-held without my trusty tripod. In the end, the diffused lighting of the overcast sky outside produced the best lighting, but because I wanted nice detail, I had to keep my ISO set relatively low, which means longer exposure times and lots of camera shake. So my tripod proved to be the best approach. After muddling around for some time with different compositions, I found that simple was best. In fact, I started looking for situations that presented me with simple yet pleasing results. Because of the bright color of the orchids, a very dark background proved to be the best to isolate the fine curvature of the petals. It also avoided that awful picture-killer, the busy background. You see, backgrounds are not to be ignored by the photographer, only by the viewer. So in order to ensure that the viewers of my images were truly ignoring the backrounds, I had to pay attention to them to ensure they were not too busy.
The reason I ended up shooting ambient light (that’s photographer talk for no flash) was because I found that the flash was too harsh on the delicate petals and over-lit, or “blew-out”, many of the highlights on the flowers. Also, because my working conditions were not something I could manipulate, there was not much distance between the flower and the backdrop. Using a flash actually lit up the background, exposing details in the background itself that proved to be distracting – not to mention the shadows. I could have avoided the shadows if I’d had a flash bracket to mount the flash higher and push the shadows down and out of view, or perhaps bounced my flash off the ceiling, but I liked the results I was getting with the existing “ambient” light, so I left it alone. Incidentally, do not trust your LCD screen to approximate proper exposure. The small screen is not an accurate barometer for exposure. I shot all of the images wide open, meaning F2.8 on the 90mm and F3.5 on the 180mm because I wanted to de-emphasize the background as much as possible, and shooting with the lenses widest opening forces more of the background out of focus. Again, this was a result that I could not have achieved with slower, higher aperture lenses (the lower the aperature number, the LARGER the opening of the lens). By shooting the images wide-open, the background was blurred enough to magically disappear from view, taking full advantage of the black dropcloth used for this exhibit.
Remember I said that I was not in control of my subjects? That was some what true, but I will admit to “ever so slightly” rotating some of the flowers to aid my composition. I wanted the images to have some flow. After all, they were not complex subjects, so the composition was everything. Looking through the viewfinder, I wanted the petals to “travel” through the image, so that the viewers eye would start at one tip of the orchid and move to the other and drop down to the beginning again. That’s what I mean by flow and is often the determining factor for a good image. It’s what keeps the viewers eye riveted on the subject, not wandering away. In the end, it highlights the shape of the flower and allows the viewer to appreciate some of the finer details of the subject, details not generally noticed with the naked eye. Again, this is why a true 1:1 macro lens is so critical for images like these – to render the details we generally take for granted.  And Macros don’t stop with flowers, insects, or stamps for that matter. You can use a macro lens to isolate a small part of a larger object, making something mundane appear interesting. Take a rusty doorknob for example. The years of rusting have given that doorknob a color and tecture quite different from when it was new. Properly composed, the doorknob can become the story, and your viewer can notice details not normally paid attention to. And just because macro lenses excel at taking stunning close-ups, they also can be used for many sorts of photography. Take the image of the greenhouse window. I looked up from shooting one of the orchids and noticed the contrast between rich color of the greenhouse interior and the overcast, gray outside. I didn’t change lenses for this shot, I simply walked to a point that my composition was pleasing and took the picture. A zoom would have been easier, but I didn’t have my zoom lens handy, and I certainly did not want to miss the shot. Same for the chairs in the rain. I liked the reflections coming off the stone paving and the fountains in the background framing the simple elegance of the chairs. And macro lenses make great portrait lenses for all the same reasons they make great flower shooting lenses – the faster aperature allows one to isolate the subject from the background, allowing the viewer to truly see the face of your subject.
And one final point – try different things. Experiment, bracket (shoot different exposures of the same shot), move around and take different angles. Look at your screen for composition and make adjustments. After all, having that little LCD screen is a huge advantage over our previous medium (film), so be sure to use it, and good luck! Definition of Macro Macro, or Maximum Magnification Ratio, is the maximum object size on the sensor (or film) versus its true life size. 1:1 equals FULL life size 1:2 equals HALF life size 1:4 equals ONE QUARTER life size Japan Camera Industry Association (JCIA) specifies that, to be considered a true macro lens, the max. mag. ratio of the lens must be equal to or GREATER than 1:4. TIPS:
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