Close Up Photography in Nature

John and Barbara Gerlach

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781135046583
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Digital Media

Capturing the grandeur of landscapes or mood of a certain natural light is challenging but often the simple details of a texture or color evade photographers most of all. In Close Up Photography in Nature, best-selling authors and nature photography pros, John and Barbara Gerlach, share the tips and techniques necessary to successfully photograph the beauty all around you.

The Gerlachs are celebrated teachers who understand a photographer's mind so they begin this book with a brief overview of the fundamentals before delving into some of the more advanced and unique challenges of close up photography. Topics covered include: advanced flash techniques specific for close up shooting, as well as a discussion on focus stacking strategies and tilt-shift lenses for getting maximum depth-of-field. The Gerlachs also discuss their strategy of mixing flash with natural light when shooting close up, which opens up all sorts of photographic possibilities – opening up shadows, creating shadows, separating the subject from the background, reducing contrast between the subject and the background, improving the color rendition, shooting sharper images, and much more. This book will change the way you see the world as well as the way you share it through your work! the world through your work!

1 Cameras and Lenses

DOI: 10.4324/9780203502112-2

A 180mm macro lens nicely isolates the autumn Sticky Geranium leaf against a completely diffused background. A Canon 580 flash created the backlight. Canon 7D, 180mm, 1/6, f/18, ISO 100, Cloudy.

All modern digital cameras are fully capable of shooting excellent close-up and macro images if impeccable technique and a suitable lens are used. Nikon, Canon, Sigma, Sony, Olympus, Panasonic, and other camera makers all work perfectly fine for shooting close-ups. For the truly dedicated close-up photographer, make sure you are able to buy a long macro lens in the 180–200mm focal length range for your camera. This is important because some camera makers do not yet offer them.

Crop Factor vs. Full-Frame Cameras

To reduce the cost and the weight of both the cameras and lenses, most cameras offer an imaging sensor that is smaller than the normal 36 × 24mm full-frame version. Small sensor sizes vary among camera models. Cameras with small sensors are said to have a magnification factor. Typical magnification factors include 1.3x, 1.5x, 1.6x, and 2x. When you view the image through a camera that has a small sensor, it appears that you are getting more magnification and shooting through a longer lens. In reality, small sensor cameras do not truly offer more magnification. Any sensor smaller than 36 × 24mm merely crops the image that would have been captured if it were shot with a full-frame sensor-sized camera.

To see the crop factor differences, put a 100mm macro lens on a camera with a 1.6x crop factor, for example a Canon 7D or 60D, and that produces a field of view that would be equivalent to a 160mm lens on a full-sized sensor camera. This smaller field of view is highly beneficial because it makes it simple to capture diffused backgrounds that aren't blemished by distractions. Using a small sensor camera still delivers super quality images while you enjoy the benefits of a less costly lighter camera. Two of the minor drawbacks to small sensor cameras include a reduction in the number and, more importantly, the size of the pixels. If the camera has more megapixels, it is more suitable for making large sharp prints in the 20 × 24 inch range. If more pixels are crowded into a small sensor, they must be tinier, making them more likely to reveal noise because the signal-to-noise ratio is less favorable. Neither of these shortcomings is a valid reason to avoid small sensor cameras. They do a terrific job! In fact, we can easily capture the quality images we need with the bottom of the line Nikon and Canon DSLR cameras to produce this book and to conduct instructional photography programs worldwide. We simply prefer the higher end cameras with full-sized sensors because they offer more features and options.

The sticky water drops on these tiny sundew leaves enable it to capture insects. Due to its small size, the image is cropped to fill the frame with this group of plants. Fortunately, the full-frame sensor of the Nikon D4 makes this easy to do because there are plenty of pixels in the sensor. Nikon D4, 105 micro, 2.5 seconds, f/22, ISO 200, Cloudy.

Features to Look for in a Camera

High Megapixel Count

Most cameras offer plenty of megapixels today, so the number isn't likely to be a problem. If your camera is a 12MP camera or higher, you have enough for most purposes. Megapixels refer to the number of pixels that are built into the camera's imaging sensor. If you have eighteen million pixels, then it is an 18-megapixel camera. Not to confuse the issue, but the pixels that make up your sensor are designed to measure photons of light. These photons create a tiny electrical charge at the pixel. Using an on-board analog-to-digital converter, the electrical charge is measured and a number value is assigned to it.

Back-Button Focus

Most cameras have a button to the right of the viewfinder that is a designated autofocus button, or it can be changed to be used as the autofocus button. Using this capability is absolutely crucial because it is the best way to focus precisely on the subject in many situations. Unfortunately, most camera makers neither stress back-button focus in their camera manual nor call it anything recognizable. When you purchase the camera, ask the salesperson if it has a button on the rear of the camera for focusing control. Nearly all cameras have this important feature, and that especially includes Canon and Nikon. One of the few places back-button focusing is not important is close-up and macro photography because it is better to use manual focus to get the sharpest possible focus. However, if your eyesight doesn't allow you to manually focus the lens, then back-button focusing becomes extremely crucial. Also, if you do any other kind of photography—sports, landscapes, animals, people—then using back-button focusing is the most efficient way to use autofocus. An article, “Back-button Focusing Benefits,” is posted on our web site at www.gerlachnaturephoto.com.

RGB Histogram

All cameras offer a histogram that shows a graphic display of the tones contained in the image as exposed. Observing the histogram is the best and fastest way to determine when you’ve reached the optimum exposure. The default histogram display is referred to by different names. Typically, it is called the Averaging, Luminance, or Bright histogram. This histogram works okay, except anytime the subject has an abundance of one color over the others or light colorcasts or both, the averaging histogram most often does not prevent you from overexposing that dominant color. For example, a red leaf in the red light of dawn will quickly max out all of the pixels in the imaging sensor that measure red light, while the green-filtered and blue-filtered pixels measure much less light. The averaging histogram may indicate the image is optimally exposed even though the reds are severely overexposed. The RGB histogram display will show the red color channel is clipped.

This specific problem of one color dominating the others is easily solved by activating the RGB histogram color channels display. Make sure your camera provides it. We would not buy a camera that did not have it! The RGB histogram displays a separate histogram for each of the color channels. We’ll discuss how to use it to achieve super exposures in Chapter Two.

Live View

Automatic focusing systems do not work well and should not be used when shooting close-up images. Since the depth-of-field is shallow when shooting at higher magnification, even at f/16, it is important to focus carefully on the most important part of the subject. This could be the wings of a butterfly, the eyes of a bee, or the stamens of a flower. The best way to precisely focus the lens is to focus manually. Unfortunately, most folks over forty don't see fine details as well as we once did—even when wearing glasses. Therefore, the best way for most of us to focus on small objects is to use Live View. When this is activated, a live image appears on the camera's rear LCD display. There is a box on the display that can be scrolled about the live image. To sharply focus, move the square box over the most important spot and then magnify the image. At 10x, the point that must be sharply focused is obviously in focus—or not—at this magnification. Slowly focus the lens manually until the spot is as sharply focused as possible. If a breeze is blowing, wait patiently for the movement to subside momentarily. Press the shutter button with a cable or remote release as soon as the subject is completely still. If the subject is wiggling at all, the motion is easily detected in the magnified live image. Don't shoot until all motion has ceased!

Live Histogram

The Canon 5D Mark III can display a live histogram when using Live View. The live histogram is useful for quickly arriving at the optimum exposure. However, if the camera detects a flash is being used, the display turns gray to indicate it is no longer accurate because the camera does not know how much light from the flash will be added to the subject.

Some cameras provide a live histogram in Live View. This means you get to view the image's histogram and determine the ideal exposure before shooting the image! It is something to look for in a new camera. Hopefully, your present camera has this feature. Be sure to activate it. Using a live histogram will greatly decrease the time it takes you to arrive at the optimum exposure.

Taking Advantage of Camera Options

Color Space

Adobe RGB 1998 and sRGB are the two most prevalent color spaces offered on cameras. Adobe RGB 1998 offers a wider color gamut. This simply means that Adobe RGB more completely covers the range of colors that we can see with our eyes. Many cameras, however, especially Canons, display the images on the LCD more colorfully if the sRGB color space is selected. Also, most viewing accessories are really set up for the sRGB color space—the Internet—for example, and many companies that produce prints also are calibrated for the sRGB color space. There is no wrong answer, but we feel JPEG shooters should use the sRGB color space. If you shoot RAW images, then you do indeed need to decide to use a color space with a larger color gamut, so you might pick Adobe RGB 1998.

We routinely shoot both a large JPEG and a large RAW file for all of our close-up images. Shooting both files at once fills the memory card and the camera's buffer faster, but this is seldom a problem with the slower pace of close-up photography—unlike wildlife photography. By using the sRGB color space, our JPEGs look great when we view them on the back of the camera, projected, or on the web. We aren't giving up anything, though, as a larger color gamut can be selected when a RAW image is processed with the Photoshop or Lightroom RAW converter software without any loss of quality. Barbara is a student of a master printer—Charlie Cramer! Charlie and many other excellent printers select a color space with a broader color gamut called ProPhoto. This color space is not an option with any cameras that we know of, but is a common option in software that can process RAW images.

Image Size on the LCD

Horizontal (landscape) images nicely fill the camera's LCD, making it much easier to see image detail. However, if you shoot a vertical, the camera will not be properly orientated when you view the LCD unless you turn the camera to the vertical. Therefore, your camera may offer you a menu choice to make vertical images appear vertical on the LCD when holding the camera horizontally. When this option is chosen the displayed images appear considerably smaller. It is more effective to turn the camera to the vertical to see a vertical image that occupies the entire LCD display. The cameras we use offer an important valuable option. We can set the camera to make vertical images fill the LCD by keeping them displayed horizontally, but when they are downloaded to a computer, the vertical images are displayed vertically, saving you time because you don't have to rotate each vertical image individually to properly view it on the computer monitor.

Reverse the Exposure Control Dials

We nearly always use and recommend using Manual exposure in close-up photography. Once you learn to do everything manually it is quicker and faster to achieve optimum exposure than continually fussing with exposure dials or buttons to assist auto exposure modes in arriving at the optimum exposure.

We’ll cover exposure...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Cameras and Lenses
• Chapter 2 Exposure Essentials
• Chapter 3 Shooting Sharp Images
• Chapter 4 Light and Color
• Chapter 5 The Power of Flash
• Chapter 6 Photographing Flowers
• Chapter 7 Special Photo Techniques for Butterflies and Dragonflies
• Chapter 8 What's in Our Camera Bags?
• Appendix: Resources
• Index