Macro Photography Gears, Accessories, Equipments, and Essentials
From the beginning of photography, it was a challenge to capture macro photographs. The invention of digital cameras has solved the issue. Now we can capture an image of attractive portion of the objects or living things that is not clearly visible to the bare eye. The term macro photography refers to the extreme close-up photography or capture an image on 35mm film frame that ranged from 1:10 to 1:1 size of the original subject. This technique enables you to have an image of small ant larger than the original ant. You can see the details and depth of field of the subject. To take a macro photo of a tiny subject requires suitable macro photography setup. You need to know exact macro photography hacks and tricks.
Macro Photography Gears
A macro photography workshop demands a considerable number of macro photography gears and accessories which will make you capable to capture stunning macro photos. Suitable macro photography gears will help you to succeed as a hobbyist or a commercial macro photographer. Perhaps you are thinking about some dedicated and costlier gear, but that is not correct. Here, we want to share a list with you what macro photography equipment you exactly need.
- Macro lens
- Lens reversing ring
- Flash & Lighting
- Friendly tripod
- Shooting table
- Box
- Rail
- Software
1. Macro Photography Lens
Actually, you don’t need to buy dedicated macro photography lens. You can shoot macro images with whatever lens you have in your collection. You have to buy just a lens reversing ring. But, if you can afford and want to buy such lens, we have some suggestions. For getting 1:1 magnification, you have to buy non-zoom lens. You may think about which one is the best. To consider, here is a list of macro lens.
⚫️ Short Macro Lenses (30-50mm)
Such a lens is for smaller sensor camera. It works best in short distance and produces greater depth of field. These lenses are cheaper that longer macros. The problem with the lenses is that they cannot work well with living flying subjects like butterfly. There are lots of brands like Sony, Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sigma, etc. are offering these lenses.
o Olympus Zuiko 35mm f/3.5 E-ED Digital
o Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Macro
o Nikon 40mm f/2.8G AF-S DX Micro
o Olympus 50mm f/2 E-ED
o Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro for Sigma
o Sony 50mm f/2.8 Macro
⚫️ Standard Macro Lenses (60-105mm)
It is the most common focal length for macro lenses. It provides comfortable working with distance from 9 to 12 inches. For capturing portrait images, this type of lenses are very suitable. There are lots of price variation of this type of lens starts from around $450.00. The brands like Nikon, Canon, Sigma, Sony, Tamron, Tokina, etc. are offering the best lenses.
o Nikon 60mm f/2.8 D AF Micro-Nikkor
o Tamron SP 60mm f/2 Di II
o Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro
o Sigma 70mm f/2.8 EX DG AF Macro
o Nikon 85mm f/3.5G AF-S DX Micro ED (VR-II)
o Sony Planar 85mm f/1.4a
o Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di
o Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro (AF)
o Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM (AF)
o Sony 100mm f/2.8
o Tokina AT-X 100mm f/2.8
o Pentax D-FA 100mm f/2.8 Macro WR
o Zeiss 100mm f/2.0 Makro Planar ZE
o Nikon 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor
⚫️ Tele-Macro Lenses (150-200mm)
If you want to capture macro photo from two feet distance, you should use tele-macro lenses. It will go to get close-up photo where reaching is almost impossible like living subjects or impenetrable places. Such type of lenses are costlier. Sigma, Canon, Tamron, Nikon, etc. are providing these lenses.
o Sigma 150mm f/2.8 EX DG APO AF
o Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM
o Tamron SP 180mm f/3.5 Di Macro LD-IF
o Nikon 200mm f/4 ED-IF AF Micro Telephoto Nikkor
⚫️ Mirrorless Macro Lenses
Mirrorless interchangeable lenses compact are smaller and lighter than DSLR. They are cheaper also. These lenses take the facilities of live view system. Anyway, these lenses continue to be refined and improved. There are some brands like Olympus, Zeiss, and Yasuhara are offering this type of lenses.
o Olympus M-Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8
o Yasuhara Nanoha Macro 5:1 for Sony E-Mount
o Zeiss Touit 50mm f/2.8 for Fujifilm X-Series
o Zeiss Touit 50mm f/2.8 for Sony E-Mount
2. Lens reversing ring
To shoot macro photos, you have to have various lenses, that is not always correct. Even you can continue macro photography without macro lens. You can take such images using the 50 mm lens if you have. What you have to do is just to reverse your lens, just like you can reverse your binocular. The front part of the lens will go outward and the outward part will be attached to the camera body. For doing this, you should have a lens reversing macro photography ring or macro reverse mount adapter. You can use your existing lens by using this ring. By the way, there are two types of ring for reverse lens macro photography available in the market.
⚫️ Single lens reverse macro
This reverse ring macro photography is used for reversing a single lens. It has one side screw at the end of your lens like a filter. You can buy the lens from Amazon or eBay at affordable prices.
⚫️Twin lens reverse macro
It will give you advantage to attach couple of lenses with camera body. It behaves like a powerful close-up filter. This lens is also available in the market like Amazon or eBay. You will get the lens cheap.
3. Flash & Lighting
For macro photography, the use of natural light is the best way. But, sometimes you may feel shortage of required light as your subject is little insects or a portion of big subject. If you want to reach depth of field, you need enough light. For this reason, you need a suitable macro photography flash setup. There are various types of flashes you can use, but if possible, use flash from an off-camera position. You can hold external flash and a hand-held flash offer more freedom to control direction and quality of light. Here we are sharing some flashes you can get ideas.
o Phoenix SmartFlash RF46C Macro Ringlight
o Olympus SRF-11 TTL Ring Flash
o Canon Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX
o Nikon R1C1 Wireless Close-Up Speedlight System
3. Tripod
A suitable tripod is always necessary for any kind of photography. If your hand is too much shaky, a tripod can be a great solution. During macro photo shooting, you may face problem with low angle and awkward spot. You may need longer shutter speed. In these cases, tripod can be very effective. For pre-focusing, focus stacking, and to reach into the depth of field of a macro subject, a macro photography stand helps much to have professional macro photos. Here, we are sharing some suitable models of tripod for macro photo shooting.
o Manfrotto MT055 CX Pro 4
o 3Pod PTT1H Table Top Aluminum Tripod
o Novoflex Rod Support System
4. Photo shooting table
Capturing macro photos is pretty much tricky. So, as much as possible easiest ways should be taken to have better images. A shooting table for macro photography can be an awesome addition. It will help you to get closer to the subject. When you try to get a macro photo of an insect or little object, if you keep it on the table, it will be easier to focus and even, you can place camera just parallel with the subject. It will help you to capture shaky & blur free macro photo. You can create a table using wood or hardboard DIY at home.
5. Lightbox
If you try to take macro photos of the live subjects like a flying butterfly or such insect, you don’t need any light box, natural light is the best in this case. But, when you take macro photos at a studio or home of the objects, products or dead insects, you should use a macro photography box which can be said a portable studio. It will help to you to fell proper light on and around the subject. You can make a suitable lightbox at home or buy from market. There are various types of lightbox, just choose one suitable for macro photo shooting. A suitable lightbox should have white background color. Its front part is open and three walls, including top and bottom parts are covered.
6. Macro photography rail
It is an excellent photography gear very useful for taking macro photos. For focus tacking, a series of perfectly aligned photos are taken from a slightly different focus point and later focus stacking software blend all the focused areas from each shot and composed a perfectly focused photo from front to back. In this way, an image of a small subject is made sharp and clear to look. The main advantage of macro photography rail is that it will let you dial camera forward slowly needed for perfectly aligned photos. The rail works best for super macro photography with reversed and stacked lenses for perfect depth of field.
7. Macro photography software
Macro photos demand focus stacking. At one attempt, you may not get sharp close-up images. You may get a lot of blur images, but don’t be hopeless, there is solution. A bunch of software is ready to solve your problem. Here, we want to mention some software like Adobe Photoshop, Helicon, Zerene Stacker, GIMP and many more. Using these software, you can do focus stacking by auto blending same aligned images together. Among all these tools, Adobe Photoshop is the best macro photography software for image blending or focus stacking and overall image editing services.
Though macro photography is pretty much tricky and challenging, it can be a great fun if you have suitable accessories. Anyway, suitable photography equipment always cannot produce right macro images, rather they may contain some flaws and that’s why, you need image editing services fro further enhancement, like: image retouching, focus stacking, Photoshop photo blending, and more like these. We are Color Experts International have been offering all types of image enhancing services for professional photographers, photo studios, and photography agencies. We have full-equipped self-owned production house that has more 250 experienced graphic designers who are working with the latest photo editing tools and gadgets. You can try us free to judge our service quality.
