Nature Photography How To

Summer is a good time to get outdoors and shoot macro photographs of insects, flowers and other tiny critters. And best yet, you rarely have to venture beyond your backyard to find a variety of interesting subjects.

Unfortunately, some photographers never take advantage of this opportunity for unique images because of a misconception that macro work requires specialized expertize and expensive gear. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, as you’ll see in the video below from British photographer Adam Kappa.

Based near England’s Lake District, Kappa provides a six-minute guide describing his approach to budget macro photography, and as you can see from his striking images it works quite well.

Kappa’s simple gear includes an entry-level DSLR with a kit lens, a cheap TTL flash with a DIY light modifier, and a set of extension tubes to decrease the minimum focusing distance and boost the maximum reproduction ratio of the lens.

Kappa takes you into the field and demonstrates how his system works while describing the necessary exposure settings and focusing techniques. You can see more from Kappa on his YouTube channel, and be sure to look at our earlier story with options for macro photography beyond bugs, flowers and jewelry. More info on his website: https://adamkappa.co.uk/