Macro Insect Photography – Up Close and Personal

Macro Insect Photography: Close and Personal

There’s something captivating about the detail found in insects; whether taking photos in their natural setting, or creating images that feature them as the main subject matter. Mastering macro insect photography takes patience and experimentation, but well-composed, creative insect photos can be highly satisfying!

Once magnification reaches macro settings, depth of field becomes extremely shallow. Therefore, many macro photographers prefer focus stacking; this involves taking multiple photos at various focal distances of your subject before merging them in Photoshop for an image with greater detail than would typically be achievable using standard macro lenses alone.

Movement is another critical factor when shooting macro photography; even minute movements can lead to blurred images, particularly with smaller subjects and scenes.

Insects are notoriously fast creatures and it’s difficult to capture their fast movement with any degree of accuracy. If you want to capture something like a dragonfly or bee flying away, for instance, then using a high shutter speed will help freeze their flight path. In addition, soft and diffused lighting like clouds or an overcast sky may work best as diffusers; or an attached soft box diffuser could provide the ideal conditions.