Macro World - The Uses of the Extreme Closeup

But there's a feature on every camcorder often overlooked by professional and amateur alike. Whether controlled by all electronic switch or a button on the manual zoom, the camcorder lens includes a macro setting. This is for capturing the extreme close-ups you can't get with the lens in its normal setting.

When you go macro, you can move as close as you like to a subject, capturing crisp, clear images that permit surprising perspectives on the world around you. This article examines a few of the many ways extreme close-ups can improve your videos,

Looking at an object with your lens in macro is like looking through a microscope. Details will appear uou might ordinarily overlook or take for granted.

Even a common object like an orange becomes an entirely new visual experience when you explore its pitted surface in extreme close-up. It's as if you're gazing at the cratered surface of an alien world. With your entire field of view filled with a roughened brightly-colored landscape, you'll never see all orange in quite the same way again.

Try macro on such objects as coins, stamps, money, golf balls a drop of water, fingernails and a burning match. Examine flowers, insects and your reflection in a mirror. The world as seen through a macro lens offers infinite potential for visual discovery.

Of course macro will soon grow boring if you simply point your camera at a parade of passing objects without artfully incorporating the results into your video work. If you consider macro as a specific type of close-up, you can begin to envision situations where its use will enhance your video storytelling ability.

For example, if you're taping your daughter's second birthday party, you know to include plenty of close-ups of her face as she opens presents and blows out candles. Now go one step further, Use the macro setting to obtain extreme close-ups of her tiny fingers as she struggles to untie the bright birthday ribbons. Capture the brilliant dance of sparkle and color from the candle flames. Macro the party decorations and the icing on the cake.

You could use macro to add pizzazz to a tape of your son's Little League base-ball games. With the macro field of view so limited, uou can shoot these extreme close-ups before or after the game, editing them into the action footage at your leisure. Consider extreme close-ups of your son gripping the bat, the team emblem on his jersey. Shoot the sweat trickling down his face, and the newspaper story reporting the results of the…