5 Free Macro Photography E-Books to Help You Master the Craft

Macro photography opens the door to a fascinating world that you’ve probably never witnessed or photographed before. It shows you the world from a completely unique perspective, a world up close – really close.

As with every other genre in photography, a proper understanding of photographic technique plays an important role in capturing remarkable macro photographs. The challenge in macro photography is greater, due to the fact that you shoot from very close distances. The end results are usually worth the effort though.

In this post, we have put together some eBooks on the subject of macro photography to help you take better macro photographs – three of them from Photzy. They are all free, downloadable PDF guides. Do check them out.

1. Short Guide to Macro Photography

If you are looking to get started with macro photography, this guide by Jason Little is a great place to start. It provides you with practical tips for successful macro photography – what equipment works best, utilizing light, getting the perfect focus and depth of field, and why patience is your friend when doing macro photography.

2. How to Use Flash When Shooting Macro

Using flash can improve your macro shots when there isn’t adequate natural light available. This short guide touches upon the basics of using flash for macro photography and how it can provide enough light to let you use smaller apertures for a wider depth of field. It provides you tips on positioning and modifying the flash along with what settings to use.

3. Using Extension Tubes to Get Started in Macro

Extension tubes can be a useful tool when you need to really close in on your subject for macro photography. If you would like to know how you can use extension tubes to create better macro photos, this guide is a good starting point as it will tell you about extension tubes and how they work, and most importantly – how to use them.

4. Close Up and Macro Photography

This eBook by photographer Michael Erlewine is a detailed and extensive guide on macro photography. With 137 pages of content in the guide, you can find literally everything you should know to get started with macro photography. There are tons of tips throughout the guide with plenty of macro photos for inspiration. There is a part 2 of this guide that exclusively covers macro lenses and their comparison.

4. The Art of Focus Stacking

Focus stacking is a method to combine a series of shots each with a different focus point running from the front to the back of the subject – to increase the depth of field in the image. Focus stacking is a widely used in macro photography.

This guide by Michael Erlewine introduces you to focus stacking and tells you how to accomplish it – from taking a proper set of shots on field to processing them and creating a focus-stacked image. Part 2 of this guide is a photo book with examples of focus-stacked images taken by the author.