Mountains Out of Molehills
Has anyone ever told you not to make a mountain out of a molehill? It simply means making something little into something big. Well, today I’m going to show you how do to just that. You’re going to get to know a little more about the macro setting on your camera. Almost all cameras have this setting… you may have noticed it on your dial. It’s designated by a tiny flower which is usually the universal image for macro, regardless of the brand you’re using. See if you can find it on your camera. It looks like this:
(image credit: seriouseats.com)
When you select this setting, you’re telling the camera that you’re going to focus on something that’s very close to the lens. Think about a time in the past when you’ve tried to take a photo of something close up, like the petals of a flower or a piece of jewelry. If you didn’t use the macro setting, your camera probably gave you a blurry mess of an image because it wanted to focus on something further away.
When I first became acquainted with the macro setting on my camera, I went crazy taking photos of lots of different types of flowers and creatures. Here are some of my earlier shots…
One thing I realized right off the bat was that a macro shot, like an image under a microscope, allows you to see details that you probably wouldn’t have noticed if you’d taken the photo at arm’s length. I saw tiny objects in a whole new way and it made me want to take more macro shots. After a few years, I invested in a macro lens that is specially designed for taking macro photos with an SLR camera. That’s when the real fun began! Check out some of the photos I was able to get in my own backyard. There are so many new details that I hadn’t noticed before!
Here’s a little spider I spotted on my deck…
And here’s what I saw when I took a macro shot of it!
I hope this tip has inspired you to see the world of tiny things in a new light. Go out and try switching your settings to macro mode. You might want to start with flowers, which don’t move around very much. You’ll be shocked at what you’re able to capture! Then you’ll be happy to make a mountain out of a molehill.
