Macro Lenses

Landscapes aren’t just about the distant views, why not try using a macro lens to focus in on the details of the landscape?

Amacro lens won’t be the first one that you reach for when shooting landscapes, but they are a great way to add variety to your landscape shoots. First of all they will give you the option of shooting traditional macro subjects such as flowers, plants or insects that you encounter in the landscape. This can be especially useful when the light or cloud isn’t ideal for shooting the wider landscape, or you simply need to shoot something different to give yourself a creative ‘break’ from one subject.

In addition to traditional macro subjects you can also use a macro lens to shoot landscapes in miniature. To achieve this you need to start looking at the details around you in the surrounding landscape, and imagine tiny plants as giant trees, a small clump of earth as a hill, or even use the larger landscape in the distance as a background. You’ll then need to get down to the level of the subject, to get a bug’s-eye view of this minute landscape.

Achieving sufficient depth of field to keep all of the miniature landscape in focus will be very difficult when shooting with a macro lens. At very close distances the area from front to back that will be sharp will be measured in centimetres, rather than metres, even at narrow apertures such as f/22 or f/32. You can use this shallow depth of field as a creative option, or with the camera on a tripod you can use a technique known as focus stacking, where you take a series of images while varying the focus from near to far, and then combine them using Photoshop or dedicated focus stacking software, such as Helicon Focus. Some Nikon cameras, like the D850 or Z 7, have a Focus Shift option. This option means that the camera will automatically take a series of images once you set the distances and number of shots, but you still need to combine these using separate software later on.

An alternative approach to small details is to shoot from above to give an ‘aerial’ view of the frame. This works best when the subject consists of graphic shapes, details or a simple array of objects on a