Enewsletter
December 2009

These days, Moats does 25 art shows a year thanks to the macro work he produces. The Tamron 60mm f/2.0 macro lens has helped him create artistic, eye-catching macro photography that can be displayed in galleries or in people’s living rooms. “I got the 60mm lens when it came out,” he says. “I like that it’s a short focal-length lens that’s able to beautifully blur backgrounds. Typically, short focal lengths in the 2.8 range have a tough time blurring backgrounds, but the 60mm lens always comes through for me. A flower or bug shot with a blurred background makes your main subject pop better, as opposed to having a distraction that competes with your main subject.”

Moats warns that just because you’re blurring your background out doesn’t mean you should neglect it entirely when setting up your macro shots. “One mistake I notice many macro photographers making when they’re photographing bugs and flowers is that they’re so fixated on their main subject that they totally forget what’s going on in the background,” he explains. “The background is as important as the main subject. Anyone can set up a shot with just the subject with minimal problems, but they might ruin the image with a distracting background. You need to set up your shot at the right angle to minimize the distractions in the background.”

In addition to blurring out his backgrounds, Moats also shoots where everything in his images is in focus. “I’m either shooting wide open or tend to stop down all the way,” he explains. “When the 60mm lens is stopped down all the way, it works really well. There’s no diffraction, and it’s very sharp—I don’t have to do much sharpening in Photoshop.”

Moats appreciates the 60mm’s fast-shooting speed and low-light capabilities. “If flowers are blowing around in a slight breeze, that faster speed helps stop the action,” he explains. “It’s also excellent in low light. I shoot in a lot of swampy areas and other places where light is limited. Shooting long exposures with a faster shooting lens, I can shoot much quicker, so those two benefits are really important.”

Moats emphasizes that aspiring macro photographers can benefit from the fact that they don’t have to travel long and far to achieve amazing images. “Probably 90 percent of my images are shot at two parks near my home,” he says. “That’s the great thing about macro—you don’t have to travel far. Landscapes don’t change that drastically from month to month, but with macro photography, you can go to the same spot and you’ll find the environment has changed every month. Flowers come in and go out on a regular basis, plants are at different levels in their growth. It opens up a lot of extra shooting time.”

Even if you live in a part of the country that has harsh winters, you can still shoot macro 365 days of the year. “When it’s winter and you don’t feel like venturing out in the cold, you can shoot right inside your house,” Moats explains. “A lot of my more abstract images are of flowers in my house from a local florist.”

Macro also lends you lighting flexibility that can be hard to come by with other types of photography, according to Moats. “With macro, you can shoot all day, because you control the light,” he says. “If there’s harsh sunlight, you can use a diffuser or reflector to compensate; if it’s too dark, you can throw a little light with a reflector. I personally like to go out early in the morning when there’s frost out at this time of year, because you can get some great shots with the frost, but you can really shoot at any time of day.”

The Tamron 60mm macro lens boasts similar photographic flexibility with its 1:1 lifesize magnification that lets you get in as close as you can and a working distance of 100mm that helps you capture your stationary subjects from a comfortable distance. “It’s nice, too—because it’s such a small lens, it’s very easy to handhold,” says Moats. “And the focusing controls are smooth and solid. It’s just a lens that performs really well overall.”

Even if you’ve got a stellar lens like the 60mm, only one thing can truly help you to master the macro genre. “You have to shoot a lot—it’s as simple as that,” says Moats. “When I do my workshops, I ask my students how many times a month they go out and shoot. Many will say once a month. That’s just 12 times out of 365 days. They want to get better, but it’s tough to get better just shooting one day a month. It’s like anything else in life—the more you do it, the better you’ll get.”

For more of Mike Moats’ photography, go to www.tinylandscapes.com and www.mikemoatsbooks.com.