Macro-Photography

Macro-photography is extremely close-up photography where the subject in the photograph is life size or larger than they are in real life. They are also normally high quality images. The subject of macro-photographs are usually very small things like insects or plants.

 The term photo-macrograph was proposed in 1899 by W. H. Walmsley for close-up images with less than 10 diameters magnification, to distinguish from true photo-micrographs.

Most DSLR cameras how have a macro mode allowing users to shoot macro-photography easily but for even better quality images photographers use special macro lenses. Macro lenses have a long barrel for close focusing and optimized for high reproduction ratios, are one of the most common tools for macro photography.

How to begin doing your own macro-photography:

Put macro mode on your camera and adjust the lens to focus on your subject. Unfortunately when you engage macro mode on most cameras you will lose control of exposure and shutter speed.

With any lens fixed to the camera, engaging macro mode on the camera commands the lens aperture to close to its minimum, so extending the depth of field and allowing you to move closer to the subject.

The best thing to do would be to by a proper macro lens but these aren't cheap so see if you are interested in Macro Photography first before you purchase such an expensive piece of equipment.

I really like macro-photographs because they show you the tiny details in things you wouldn't notice normally and after researching it I would like to try doing some macro–photography for myself.

Sources:

http://digital-photography-school.com/macro-photography-for-beginners-part-1/

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography