Essential macro photography tips and techniques

Close-up photographs of everything from insects to flowers, food and household objects can reveal astonishing levels of detail. You might assume you need fancy equipment and professional skills for great macro photography, but with just a few hints and tips anyone can take stunning close-up shots, even with budget-friendly cameras and lenses. Read our macro photography guide for all the advice you need.

To keep things simple, most entry-level Canon cameras have a Macro shooting mode, available on the mode dial or via the menu system. This optimises all the relevant settings for close-up photography. Full macro photography goes further, typically involving a lens that delivers full 1.0x magnification. This means small objects are reproduced at full life size on the camera's image sensor, enabling extreme magnification when you view the resulting photographs on-screen or in print.

This macro photography guide sets out to answer all the most common questions about macro and close-up photography, including:

1. Choosing your kit: whatever kit you have, you can take great close-up photography, but a powerful camera and dedicated macro lens can help you take things up a level.
2. Understanding your settings: automatic macro modes are great for casual close-ups, but switching to Aperture priority (Av) or Manual (M) mode will enable you to fully unleash your creativity.
3. Staying in focus: Canon's reliable autofocusing systems are great for general photos, but for ultimate macro shots try features like focus peaking and bracketing.
4. Editing your photos: macro photography often benefits from editing, but you needn't be a pro. Simply cropping your shots will help bring finer details to the fore, while spot healing can help refine the final product.

You don't need expensive cameras and lenses to shoot close-ups. The best camera for macro photography is the one you have at hand. Many entry-level point-and-shoot cameras have a Macro shooting mode that enables focusing distances down to just 1cm. The Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III compact camera has a more powerful Macro mode, adding the bonus of focus peaking for accurate manual focusing, which we'll come to later.

EOS cameras that take interchangeable lenses give you more flexibility for close-up shooting, as you can fit the ideal lens for the task. They also have vari-angle touchscreens that enable you to shoot from any angle and offer focus bracketing and focus peaking options.

The Canon EOS M50 Mark II mirrorless camera is a great affordable option, especially when combined with an EF-M 28mm f/3.5 Macro IS STM lens. This gives greater maximum magnification at 1.2x, and launched as the world's first autofocus lens to feature a built-in LED Macro Lite for illuminating the subject.

What are the best lenses for macro photography?

• Canon RF 100mm F2.8L MACRO IS USM
• Canon RF 85mm F2 MACRO IS STM
• Canon RF 35mm F1.8 MACRO IS STM
• Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
• Canon EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM
• Canon EF-M 28mm f/3.5 Macro IS STM

For enthusiasts looking to take their creative macro photography to the next level, dedicated macro lenses and Canon's range of full-frame cameras are ideal. The full-frame sensors in the Canon EOS RP and EOS R6 retain incredible image quality under low-lighting levels, for clean shots even at high ISO values. They both also include a focus bracketing mode that's particularly useful for macro photography, which we'll explain a little later. Excellent companion lenses include the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 MACRO IS STM and RF 85mm F2 MACRO IS STM. These deliver 0.5x maximum magnification and come complete with hybrid Image Stabilizers to keep handheld images blur free.

The same applies to the pro-grade Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM for DSLRs. For super-sized magnification, the top-spec Canon RF 100mm F2.8L MACRO IS USM delivers a huge 1.4x magnification.

The Macro shooting mode of many Canon cameras works well, but for more creative close-up shooting with enthusiast-level cameras, it's best to take control yourself. The use of semi-automatic and manual modes can pay dividends.

A particular challenge is that depth of field (the distance between the nearest and furthest points in a scene that are rendered sharply) becomes very small in close-up photography and absolutely tiny in full macro shooting. To maximise the depth of field, you can switch to Av (Aperture priority) shooting mode and dial in a narrow aperture of around f/16 to f/22. Unless lighting is very bright, however, this can require slow shutter speeds for a correct exposure. That's not generally an issue if you're using a tripod for flower macro photography, food close-ups and other still-life subjects, but dull lighting can result in flat-looking images. For indoor shots, you can add light with a table lamp, or use daylight from a window. Photographic LED lamps are also a good option, as are the LED Macro Lites in some Canon lenses, mentioned above.

Insect macro photography will require a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion. This is also true when other living subjects are involved, for example in eye macro photography. One way of achieving this when also using a narrow aperture is to increase your camera's ISO setting. However, going for a higher ISO can result in a loss of fine detail and an increase in image noise – which is where the low noise capabilities of full-frame cameras like the EOS RP or EOS R6 come into play.

A more advanced solution is to use a flashgun or Speedlite. As well as adding illumination, the very short duration of the flash effectively freezes the action. For ultimate close-up control and a shadowless lighting effect in macro photography, the Canon Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX II is compatible with most Canon macro lenses.

Focusing can be tricky in close-up shooting and demands extreme accuracy, due to the typically tiny depth of field. The Canon Photo Companion app includes a useful tool which calculates the closest and furthest points of focus, depth of field and the hyperfocal distance depending on your camera and settings.

For still-life images such as macro food photography, it's best to mount your camera on a tripod or other support, so that it's fixed in place and there's no movement or blur. To ensure complete stillness, use the camera's two-second self-timer or a remote control, so you don't have to touch the camera when taking the shot.

Even when using a tripod, vibrations can be caused by touching the camera immediately before an exposure and, for DLSRs, the action of the reflex mirror flipping up. A good combination of settings available in most Canon DSLRs is to use the two-second self-timer delay in conjunction with the Mirror lockup mode. The mirror will then flip up two seconds before the shot is taken, giving sufficient time for vibrations to dissipate. The Canon Camera Connect app is also useful in these situations, enabling you to control your camera from your phone.

With the camera locked in place, autofocus can work well if you use single-point AF and precisely line up the point with the part of the subject that you want to be sharpest. Manual focusing can work even better, as demonstrated in the video above. Canon's recent EOS M and all EOS R System mirrorless cameras feature a focus peaking option (your lens must be in MF mode). Turn this on and areas within the image frame will be indicated in the viewfinder or rear screen as they come into focus, allowing you to fine-tune your shot. Alternatively, use a magnified preview of the desired area to ensure optimum manual focusing. You can use the same technique on the rear screen of Canon DSLRs by switching to Live View mode.

Even with the most accurate focusing and a narrow aperture, you'll sometimes find that you still can't get as much front-to-back sharpness as you want. Again, this is due to the very shallow depth of field when shooting close up. Some Canon cameras, including the Canon EOS RP and EOS R6, feature a Focus Bracketing mode. This is great for macro shooting, as it takes a series of shots while automatically progressing through a range of focus distances between each frame. The series can then be merged into a single image at the editing stage, resulting in a wider focal plane.

The vast majority of close-up and macro images greatly benefit from a little editing. If the minimum focusing distance of your lens restricts you from getting as close to a subject as you'd like, don't panic. Creative cropping at the editing stage enables you to remove the unwanted periphery from an image and retain just the area you want to keep.

Nothing is ever entirely perfect. When you're shooting macro or close-up photographs, the sheer level of fine detail that you'll capture will accentuate any specs of dust, blemishes and other flaws. A spot healing brush or clone tool in image editing software can effectively mask these over, by copying the brightness, colour and texture data from surrounding pixels.

The latest versions of Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP) also include a Depth Compositing tool. This automates the process of converting a batch of images captured with the Focus Bracketing mode of EOS R System cameras, merging them into a single image. It's perfect for extending the effective depth of field in close-up and macro photography.


Hopefully these tips and techniques have demonstrated how easy it is to get started with macro photography and inspired you to get out there and have a go at honing in on the detail and capturing your own close-ups.



Written by Matthew Richards