One of the coolest aspects of photography is the ability to take a picture of something so small that you can spot details even the human eye finds difficult. But did you know there are different types of photography for taking such pictures?
Macro, micro and close up photography can help you capture detailed images of any object. But many photographer’s don’t truly understand the difference between these photography styles (or if there even is a difference).
We hope to help shed some light on all the confusion so that you can continue taking photos of minuscule objects without getting the parlance wrong. And if you are not already enjoying this kind of work, we’d like to encourage you to start.
What is macro photography?
Macro photography, in a technical sense, is any photography that shoots in a 1:1 ratio. This means that anything you shoot will look life-size in the resulting image. This form of photography is taken with a dedicated macro lens. These camera lenses are on the higher end of the price line, but they capture your tiny objects in a ridiculously detailed manner.
Macro photography allows the subject to take up most of the frame and can accommodate an incredible amount of accuracy when it comes to small details. Since it’s really up close and personal with the object you can lose a sense of how small it really is.
What is micro photography?
Micro photography refers to any photography that uses a magnification ratio of 20:1 or higher. This unusual form of photography isn’t something that every photographer can get into.
Unfortunately, there is no micro lens that is used for capturing such a large extent of magnification. So you’re going to need to go old school and use a microscope to blow up your object. The cost of such microscopes is usually inexpensive compared to that of macro lenses.
What is close-up photography?
Close-up photography takes a subject and zooms in on it to get a better view of its features. The subject is often small, like an insect, but the resulting photographs still give a sense of what you’re looking at. For example, a butterfly on a leaf is close-up photography as you can still make out the size of the butterfly with respect to the leaf and other surroundings.
There are no special camera lenses for close up photography; any regular lens will do. All you need it to do is to be able to zoom in on your subject to capture more details. Any magnification ratio of less than 1:1 will fall under close-up photography.
How to recognise the difference between macro, micro and close up photography
As macro, micro and close up photography, all deal with magnified ratios, it can be difficult to distinguish between the three. A close-up photo is generally visually distinguishable as you can understand the relative size of the subject with context to its surroundings.
Macro photography can also be identifiable even without any context. But micro photography will not be identifiable as it blows up the subject to an extent that the human eye cannot comprehend unaided.
In general parlance, close-up photography encompasses all three forms of magnified photography – macro, micro and close-up. In reality, there exists a clear and defined difference between all three, depending upon which camera lens is being used and its magnification ratio.
Now that you know how macro, micro and close-up photography differ from one another, you’ve got a clear guideline on how you should be going about your photography. There obviously is a difference, not only in the gear that needs to be used but also in the techniques adopted to nail these photographs.
And most importantly – have fun with it!
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