Last night we welcomed Tony North from Manchester, via Zoom, who gave his talk entitled The Art of Macro. Tony has many awards for his work in Macro photography, and has this year been awarded overall winner of the International Garden Photographer of the Year.
Tony’s macro work is predominantly Pictorial images of butterflies, moths, Dragon flies and Damselflies, but also flowers and leaves and fungi.
His main aims when setting up his shots for insect are for a sharp subject and a blurred background. To achieve this, he sets himself 7 challenges which he explained to us, illustrated by some of his amazing images.
The challenges to achieve his aims are
· Finding and then getting close to the subject
· Appropriate depth of field
· Avoiding camera movement
· Avoiding subject movement
· Achieving appropriate light and shutter speed
· Careful consideration of composition and Bokeh
· Any post processing required.
To finish his presentation Tony showed us how he would go about setting up indoors for a detailed flower shot. His set up included a light box and 2 LED lights, one placed either side of the light box. The photo produced was a stacked shot of 6 images, with some lightroom and photoshop processing.
Our thanks to Tony for a very interesting talk, which I’m sure has given us plenty to think about for our practical macro evening next Friday. Please remember to bring your cameras, tripods, and any props you may wish to photograph.
A reminder that any images you may wish to be considered for entry into the Western Area Battle should be with Jane by next Friday, 27th October ready for a selection panel to make final choices.
I
Garden Photographer of the Year 2023
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