Unlocking the Magic of Macro Photography with Galaxy A51: Tips and Tricks for Stunning Close-Up Shots

You don't need professional cameras or lenses anymore. With Galaxy A51, you can master the art of close-up photography effortlessly.

1. Unlocking the Magic of Macro Photography with Galaxy A51: Tips and Tricks for Stunning Close-Up Shots

You don't need professional cameras or lenses anymore. With Galaxy A51, you can master the art of close-up photography effortlessly.

Macro Photography has long been celebrated for its ability to capture the minutiae of everyday life, turning the ordinary into extraordinary. It's an artistic genre that allows photographers to creatively interpret even the tiniest objects around us, conveying profound messages to viewers.

Exploring the World of Macro Photography

Macro photography, with its unique ability to capture intricate details, has long been a fascination for photographers. Getting up close and personal with subjects, specialized lenses are essential, offering minimum focusing distances ranging from a few centimeters (for short focal length lenses) to several tens of centimeters (for longer telephoto lenses). Macro subjects often exhibit ratios of 1:2, 1:1, or 2:1 (the ratio of the subject's image size on the camera sensor), with some lenses capable of magnifications up to 10:1 or 20:1.

Specialized and bulky camera lenses tailored for macro photography.

While traditional macro photography involves dedicated cameras and lenses, modern smartphone users opt for external lenses with magnifying optics. However, with the advent of the Galaxy A51, mobile photographers, and even casual users, can easily explore the world of close-up photography. All it takes is a Galaxy A51 equipped with its dedicated macro camera.

A quick recap on the camera specifications of the Galaxy A51. Samsung equips the Galaxy A51 with a quad-camera setup, comprising: - 48MP f/2.0 wide-angle camera, equivalent to a 26mm focal length - 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera, equivalent to a 13mm focal length - 5MP f/2.4 telephoto camera with macro capabilities (minimum focusing distance from 3 - 5cm), equivalent to a 40mm focal length - 5MP f/2.2 depth-sensing camera.

The Samsung Galaxy A51 features a dedicated macro camera.

Unlocking a world of creativity, the Galaxy A51's macro camera empowers users to explore the finer details of their surroundings effortlessly.

Overall, with this quad-camera setup, users can capture a variety of different types of photos, including landscapes, wide-angle scenes, portraits, and street views. However, for the purpose of this article, we'll focus specifically on the Galaxy A51's macro camera, as it's one of the first smartphones to feature close-up shooting capabilities, promising to be a photography trend in 2020.

The Galaxy A51 along with its main quad-camera setup

To maximize the effectiveness of the macro camera on the Galaxy A51 and to capture the most beautiful photos, we need to pay attention to certain key points when taking photos with this macro camera. With the Galaxy A51, when users take close-up photos, we can't adjust the focus area, aperture, or change the lens focal length.

Close-up shooting mode on the Galaxy A51

Identifying the subject to capture

Firstly, to capture any type of photo, we need to clearly identify the subject to capture. The same goes for close-up shots; the subject of macro photography is usually something small, the smaller the better. This could include flowers, leaves, water droplets, or even insects. With such small subjects, through the macro lens of the Galaxy A51, they will appear larger and more detailed than ever, providing viewers with a different and intriguing perspective compared to normal vision.

However, due to the wide-angle view and focusing distance of 3 - 5cm of the Samsung Galaxy A51's macro camera, users should focus on static objects such as flowers, leaves, etc. For small insects like bees, butterflies, it's difficult to get close within the 3 - 5cm range to capture them.

'Set up' the environment and proper lighting

To capture high-quality macro photos, photographers often have to set up a separate shooting area with adequate lighting (if shooting in a studio), or use lighting tools such as flashlights, detachable LED lights, or LED lights attached directly to the lens to illuminate the subject. Because when taking macro photos, we need to close the aperture very small to avoid having a too thin depth of field (DOF), leading to not being able to focus on the entire frame.

Ảnh minh họa môi trường chụp ảnh macro, yêu cầu rất nhiều ánh sáng

However, with the Galaxy A51's macro camera, users only have a fixed aperture and fixed focusing distance, so when shooting macro, make sure the surrounding light is sufficient for the best quality photos, as in photography, light is the most crucial factor determining the quality of the image.

The camera app of the Galaxy A51 provides a brightness adjustment slider, however, we advise users not to use this slider; instead, set up external lighting to obtain the best quality photos.

If you're not in an ideal lighting environment, don't worry, we can still make use of available light sources. The Galaxy A51 offers users the option to use the device's built-in flash to illuminate the subject. If the device's flash is not sufficient, you can also use another smartphone's flash (or a flashlight) to illuminate from different directions.

Utilize the device's built-in LED flash

Or use the flash of another smartphone to be able to adjust the direction of the light

Use a tripod or continuous shooting mode

When taking macro photos, since the subject is very small and the focusing distance is only about 3 - 5cm, it's inevitable to experience hand tremors or out-of-focus issues. To avoid this, you can use a tripod to stabilize the Galaxy A51.

Use a fixed phone tripod (Illustration)

However, if you don't have a tripod to stabilize the device, try using the continuous shooting mode of the Galaxy A51 (by holding down the capture button) to capture multiple frames at once, then filter out the clearest and highest quality photos. This method helps you save time by avoiding having to retake photos when the camera shakes or fails to focus correctly. You can also use the Galaxy A51's continuous shooting feature to gradually approach moving subjects such as insects (e.g., bees or butterflies).

Galaxy A51's continuous shooting mode (hold down the capture button)

The final and equally important step: Post-processing

Of course, after completing all the steps to produce a macro photo from the device, we still need another processing step, which is post-processing. This step will make the captured macro photo more vibrant with various color effects that are more suitable for each subject.

Before and after photos. The color of the photo can completely change the message content that the photographer wants to convey

Software you can use for photo post-processing such as Snapseed, VSCO... (on mobile) or Lightroom (on computer). The default camera app of the Galaxy A51 also provides some basic color filters that users can apply during shooting. However, to ensure the best quality, we recommend users to take raw photos and then post-process for more options.

The available color filters provided by the camera app

And here are the results captured from the Galaxy A51's macro camera:

Overall, the macro camera of the Galaxy A51 provides relatively good quality, with photos being reasonably sharp and detailed. This is acceptable considering that the Galaxy A51 is just a mid-range smartphone from the A-series aimed at young people, and the macro camera has only a 5MP resolution.

However, if you know how to make the most of what you have and set up an ideal lighting environment, macro photos taken from the Galaxy A51 can become dazzling and captivating, depicting small objects through the Samsung Galaxy A51's macro lens and becoming extraordinary.

(According to genk.vn)