Last week when I attended The Body Shop at Home Event (you can read my post about it here) we were given a mini-masterclass in blog photography by the incredibly knowledgeable Stuart from Dreghorn Photography.  He broke down the basics such as lighting and using camera settings. He also introduced us to macro lenses. This was new to me and pretty damn revolutionary! Myself and other bloggers were under the impression that you’d need a very expensive lens to get closer to what you’re photographing. I’m so pleased to say I was very wrong about that!

I think there’s a general consensus that you have to invest in an expensive kit to get great photography. While it’s entirely up to you how much you want to spend and if you do want the best go for it but I think you can also do it relatively cheaply. I do love photography and by far the most expensive things I have are my camera and lens. I’m currently using an Olympus Pen E-LP7 with the 45mm lens which is well worth investing in for your blog photography, or your photography in general. This lens will you give you beautiful depth that the kit lens can’t do. I don’t use specialist lighting or expensive Photoshop. I’m lucky that I have a nice big window that lets in a decent enough amount of light. I am going to do another post soon about my full set-up and how I take photos.

As soon as I got home from the event I had a look on Amazon where I came across these rather nifty Polaroid 4-Piece Close Up Camera Lens Filter Kit. The lenses come in +1,+2, +4 and +10. Each lens lets you get increasingly closer to the subject while still keeping everything in focus. Genius. They come in different sizes to fit different lenses. My camera lens is 37 but they’re also available for lots of other sizes.

The lenses are incredibly well made and easily screw on and off the camera lens. They also come in a protective pouch that’s small enough to be carried about in a bag. 

In the top nail polish photo I’m using my camera without the macro lens. This is as close I can get to the subject without my camera going crazy trying to focus. In the one below it I’m using the +2. I can get much closer to the subject before losing focus.

In the first picture of the small wind-up cat toy (which is about 3 or 4 cm long and roughly 2 cm high) I’m using the +4 and I can get in really close without losing focus. The blurring effects is due to me using 1.8 aperture. In the one below I’m using the +10 macro lens and this gets in super close. This was a bit tricky initially as I’m not used to shooting so close up but if you love taking macro shots of small things this is absolutely brilliant.

The Polaroid 4-Piece Close Up Camera Lens Filter Kit is a brilliant and effective (and budget!) way of creating macro photography. For beauty bloggers it really lets you get close to the products, so for swatches it’s just excellent. I really rate these, they’re going to make a big difference to my photography.

Have you tried these?

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Tags: blog tips, photography, photography tips, polaroid