Macro Leaf At-Home Photography Tutorial

Macro Photography  •  Photography Tips

.Autumn leaves can be a great subject for macro photography. They go through a change in color which gives them an interesting look. Furthermore, they also undergo the decaying process which further adds interesting textures and patterns to the leaves. And the best part is that you can easily take them home and photograph them to create interesting photos. In this context, today we have photographer Andrew Lanxon share some easy yet eye-catching macro detail photographs from the comfort of your own home:

If you’re new and want to get started with macro photography, this can be an easy and exciting way to do so. Make sure that you have a proper macro lens, a tripod, and a flash/speedlight/LED light source with you. With the essential camera gear sorted out, let’s get shooting.

During the course of the withering process, it is common for the leaves to curl up. This makes it a bit difficult for us to work with them. Lanxon shares a pretty interesting way you can easily flatten the leaves. Place the leaves between two books.

In the video, you can see that Lanxon works with an LED light with a softbox to illuminate the leaf. However, you can any sort of light you might have. Just make sure that it’s off-camera. As you’ll see in the video, more than the type of light you’re, using it’s where you place that light that makes a world of difference.

For instance, by lighting the left head-on, you can uniformly illuminate the leaves and capture all the intricate details. However, this can also make the image appear flat. On the contrary, if you illuminate the same leaf from any of the sides, then you can instantly see how the textures on the leaves pop out. This instantly adds depth to the image and brings it to life.

Another important thing to consider when taking macro photos is the background. With different backgrounds, you can control the look and feel, and the overall contrast in the image. Also, depending on the type of leaf (or any macro subject) that you’re working with, you can also control the level of attention you want your subject to draw with the background. For instance, in this video, you can see that the black background works very well to emphasize the leaf Lanxon is working with.

Macro leaf photo shared by Markus Spiske

Another very important thing to keep in mind when doing macro photography is the aperture you’re working with. Since the depth of field is pretty shallow in macro photography, it becomes essential to work with large enough aperture values, somewhere in the range of f/11 or even higher. Doing so maximizes sharpness by having more of the subject in focus. Don’t go overboard though as diffraction will kick in and soften the image.

Another key takeaway from the video is that you can take a handful of photographs from a single leaf. Even with a subtle movement of your camera, you can get an entirely different composition – pretty awesome right? Such type of macro photography is thus a nice creative exercise to do when going out is not an option.