Superclose Photo Tips Continued

A couple of things you may want to note:

For super close ups taking a picture 1 inch away from your subject is often difficult since the lens has little patience for being even a little too far or too close to the object. If you move away from that 1-inch in-focus area, your subject will quickly get out of focus. My tip is to mount your camera on a tripod in order to get really good shots!

You will want to pick a great location to take your photo. If it is an inanimate object you can place it on a table with a white background, either cloth or paper. Ideally, you want your camera to be facing straight at the object. The best idea is to get a chair and sit down in front of your camera.

The best advantage to using a tripod is that you can use long exposures without worrying about camera shake. To be on the safe side you can either use a shutter cable or, if your camera can’t accept one, the built-in self-timer. Unfortunately, even the shake from holding down the shutter button can blur the image.

Finally, prior to taking your photo, it’s a good idea to measure the white-point of the image and set your camera accordingly. Doing this will save you lots of color-balancing work later in Photoshop. You can do this by selecting the Measure White-point feature on your camera and holding the shutter halfway down.

The camera then measures the light of your image and bases the white-point on the particular lighting you are using. If you can’t measure the white-point manually, some cameras will let you choose from a menu of pre-sets, such as Tungsten, Fluorescent, or Daylight. Its best to set your camera appropriately to get the best color balance possible.