Summer Shooting Tips: Soft And Beautiful Macro

Starting Simply: A Close-Up Filter Macrophotography is challenging, especially when using medium or large format, and I was looking for a method to get closer to the subject. Prior to this experiment, I had avoided single-element close-up filters because their quality doesn’t match that of extension tubes, multi-element filters or macro lenses. But I knew I’d be spending a lot of time with flowers on a specific trip and I wanted to try something new. I added a +3 close-up filter to my bag.

Looking through the viewfinder of my Mamiya RZ, there appeared to be an alien world on the other side of the lens. With the +3 close-up filter attached to a 250mm lens, nothing looked sharp and the edges looked distorted. I tried focusing, but with no success. I tried a different angle and then a different subject. Finally, an appealing composition started to come together.

As I’ve always done with macro subjects, I used the lens’ depth-of-field preview to fine-tune the focus and composition, but this time the pleasing composition disappeared. I figured stopping down wasn’t the way to go and I photographed this particular Texas bluebonnet with the lens wide open. I was concerned how this would look on the light table since there would be virtually no depth of field and close-up filters need to be stopped down to be even somewhat sharp.

Maybe out of frustration, I started rotating the camera right and left, and tilting it up and down. Suddenly, another composition caught my eye; it was soft, distorted and not focused. I released the shutter and the game began. Moving the tripod only a few inches, I started looking for the next “fuzzy flower” composition. I spent the rest of the morning moving the tripod a few inches one way and then another, looking through the viewfinder as if looking into a bizarre forest of color.

Shooting Softly
Soft macro compositions are exceedingly difficult to previsualize since they don’t resemble reality. Yet exploring through the lens has continued to be my favorite approach to finding these images.

One technique that can yield interesting results (and at other times poor results) is photographing through foreground objects. I’ll choose a portion of a flower as a subject that’s partially obscured by other leaves and blossoms. Since the lens is left at a wide aperture, the plant parts between the lens and the subject remain so out of focus that they appear as a translucent frame. This method doesn’t always work, attesting that every photographic situation is different. Still, the successes more than make up for the failures.

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