Cape Town Macro Photography 2025
Macro photographs of small things from our March 2025 trip to Cape Town. Most of these shots were of autumn budding plants in our garden in Noordhoek, many of them taken in the morning, just after the irrigation had finished, so they are covered in sparkling water droplets.
These are hand-held macro photographs, mostly taken at about a 2:1 ratio (full-frame equivalent) â?? which is to say that the image appears on the sensor at about double its actual size. Micro Four Thirds cameras like my OM-1 are particularly suited for macro work because they keep about twice as much of the image in focus as a full-frame camera, and they are also very light, with excellent image stabilisation.
Despite that, macro images are not easy to take. The final images are composed of five to twenty separate frames, each of which has only a sliver of the plant in focus. By stacking all of these frames together it is possible to get an image in focus almost from front to back â?? that’s the theory. In practice, keeping the camera stable for the sequence of shots is very hard.
Photographs in this album include: Oldman Saltbush with water droplets, Brunsfelsia (yesterday, today and tomorrow plant), Cape honeybush, and various garden macro subjects from the Noordhoek garden.
For camera settings, techniques and equipment used in shoots like this, see the Technique posts on mcaughtry.photo.