At first glance, winter can seem empty—little color, few plants, and not much movement. But in reality, it’s packed with details you won’t find at any other time of year. Frost creates delicate and prickly shapes, ice hides tiny bubbles and frozen flowers. Winter macro photography tends to be minimalist, with clean structures and simple forms, while melting ice can turn an ordinary twig or blade of grass into a surprisingly photogenic subject.  

Do you want to try macro photography and capture fascinating close-ups of flowers, insects, and plants? You don’t need to spend a fortune on pricey gear! Learn how to use everyday camera equipment, light, and a few creative tricks to get stunning macro shots of nature and discover the magic of close-ups in your garden, the woods, or a meadow.  

Macro photography is much more than just a macro lens and flash. There are many different types of backgrounds, as well as accessories for arranging macro subjects such as insects.

A number of macro photography articles have already been published here at learn.zoner.com. They’re enough for you to learn nearly everything there is to know about the subject. But in this part of our series on choosing your kit, we won’t be telling you how to shoot macro for once. Instead, we’ll be telling you what combination of body and lens to choose for it.

Macro photography is one of those genres where equipment really matters. Even in ordinary photography, it’s all about light, and in macro photography that goes double, especially when it comes to light diffusion.

The high quality of today’s cameras lets us all capture the right moments at the highest quality, and also advance our ways of seeing the world. We zoom up on things hundreds of meters away, capture the wondrous scenery of the night sky, and likewise photograph the stunning details of our nearest surroundings. Let’s zoom in on that last bit.

The main disadvantage of macro shots is their low depth of field. Everyone recommends a tight aperture, but in practice even that won’t get you really sharp macro. But there’s another option—taking multiple shots at varying depths and joining them on a computer.

Winter’s a season when most photographers put away their macro lenses until spring. But in reality this cold period offers much more than it might seem. Thanks to the freezing temperatures, you can photograph things like glaze ice… but snowflakes are a much bigger challenge.