Taking Close-Up Photos

Macro photography, a term commonly used by underwater photographers, simply means extremely close-up photography. By moving your camera in very close to your subject and taking a macro photo at point-blank range, you can fill the frame with a very tiny subject or greatly magnify details on a larger subject. (Macro literally means "large.") Macro photography focuses the viewer's attention on details they might not normally notice-a small fish face, for example, or a tiny animal usually ignored by divers.
Most camera lenses don't let you get close to a subject and keep the subject in focus unless you make some special adjustments. You'll find that many lenses and cameras have a "macro mode," a setting that shifts lens elements in a way that lets you get very close and still be able to focus on your subject.
The depth-of-field (the distance that remains in focus from near to far) in macro photography is very shallow, and gets shallower the closer you get. The eyes of a tiny fish, for example, might be in focus while the gill plate right behind the eyes is out of focus. This makes focusing a challenge in macro photography.
To help focusing for close-ups, anchor yourself firmly into place before shooting. (Be careful to anchor in a safe spot that doesn't destroy coral or other habitat.) Set the macro mode on your camera so you can get closer to your subject and still keep it in focus. A good starting distance is within arm's reach of your subject. You can then move in as close as your camera and the subject will let you.

The closer you can get to your subject and still keep it in focus, the greater you can magnify your subject in the frame for a picture with more impact. The SEA&SEA 3000G, 5000G, 8000G, and 1G cameras all come with an extremely powerful macro function that can focus on subjects as close as 0.4inch / 1cm from the lens, almost close enough to touch the lens.

Macro mode usually offers the ability to zoom in and out on your close-up subjects. Whenever possible, zoom out as wide as you can for macro, and get as close as you can to your subject. Remember that more water between you and your subject filters out colors and clarity, giving your picture a milky cast. Being close brings out color and details and gives your pictures more impact.
When shooting a wide macro shot using auto focus, move the camera as close to your subject as you can get while framing it properly without going beyond its minimum focusing distance (a half an inch or one centimeter for SEA&SEA 3000G, 5000G, 8000G, and 1G cameras). Once you've framed the subject, press the shutter button down halfway and watch for the focus lamp to verify that the camera's able to focus.
Keep the shutter button halfway down to lock the focus, look carefully at the LCD monitor, and move the camera in and out from the subject until you get the focus just the way you want it. As you move the camera in and out, the focal plane moves in and out as well, bringing different parts of your subject and background in and out of focus. Once you get the focus you want, press the shutter button all the way down to capture the image. You'll find that using focus lock like this really helps master the challenge of shallow depth-of-field in macro photography.
Although you can get really close to some subjects like nudibranchs that don't react to divers, other subjects like fish aren't so docile. Get too close and they'll zip away. For macro subjects like these, get as close as you can to your subject, then zoom in as much as necessary to fill the frame.

*Some cameras offer a digital zoom. Avoid using it if you can-it pixellates your picture, giving it a rough quality that's not very appealing. It's always better to shoot wide and get as close as you can to your subject.

The big challenge of macro photography is that the closer you get, the harder it is to focus because the depth of field gets so shallow. It's very important to know the right part of your image to keep in focus, and what parts can fall out of focus. As you shoot and analyze your shots, you'll learn the right place for your focal point.

The photos below are enlarged so you can see the details of focus:

One of the most important focal points in any picture is an animal's eyes. A viewer looks first at eyes. If they're out of focus, it's unsettling and the viewer doesn't connect with the subject. If they're in focus, the viewer can sometimes feel an emotional connection to the subject.
To get the eyes in focus, look at the LCD monitor, press the shutter button down halfway to lock focus, then move the camera until the eyes are sharp and you've composed the picture the way you want it, then slowly click the shutter.