Pollen Macro Photography

Pollen Macro Photography – 5x and 10x Magnification – Watch on YouTube

We love flower photography, but there’s one aspect of flowers that often gets overlooked – the pollen. In this tutorial, we’re doing some pollen macrophotography at super high magnifications like 5x and 10x.

Pollen Macro Photography

Pollen is everywhere, anyone with hayfever can attest. It’s so small it can ride on the wind, stick to our clothes and most importantly, attach itself to the bodies of pollinators like bees.

These attributes naturally make pollen a very small subject to try and capture. Luckily, we know where it likes to hang out – inside our favourate flowers!

Photographing the pollen inside a flower is tricker than it sounds however. It takes some special lenses and lighting, along with some specific equipment. We have some tips for getting close enough to see the detail on the pollen grains within a flower.

5x Pollen Macro Photography

5x magnification means we’re making the image of our pollen 5 times larger than it is in real life, to fit on our camera sensor. For reference, macro photography is generally regarded to begin at 1x magnification.

This means we’re going to need a lens capable of enlarging the subject within our camera by 5 times. We can achieve this with the Laowa 25mm f2.8 1.5x – 5x Lens.

This is a really nice lens that give a great range of super macro magnifications. It means you can get close, but still frame your shots if 5x is a little too much for a particular subject.

You’re also going to need a tripod to keep the camera steady. The flower needs to be kept still and in position too, so something like the Macro Subject Holder is really handy.

You will need to focus stack to get any recognisable images. Pollen macro photography at these magnifications will have a very shallow depth of field. Often the amount of your image in focus at once will be less than a single grain without focus stacking.

For this you will need a stacking rail. Either a manual or automatic rail is fine, but you will probably have an easier time with something automated. Make sure your entire setup is on a solid and sturdy surface as any vibrations can ruin your focus stack. If you want to know a bit more about focus stacking, check out our focus stacking tutorial.

10x Pollen Photography

Shooting with the 2.5x – 5x Laowa Lens is great, but it doesn’t quite get close enough to see the detail on the individual pollen grains. To get closer, we need something even more powerful.

Laowa also produce a set of lenses that range from 10x to 50x magnification. For pollen we really only need the 10x, but that alone represents a significant jump.

When shooting with the Laowa Aurogon 10x lens, all of the challenges faced with the 5x lens are amplified. Any camera shake from an unstable setup is amplified and the depth of field is truly minute.

If you want to get this close, you’re going to need to redouble your efforts in keeping the setup stable, and focus stacking will require even more images.

Lighting for 10x Macro Photography

One of the biggest challenges though, is getting enough light. Both of the lenses mentioned have very small working distances (the space between the lens and the subject) as well a requirement for lots of light.

We have the perfect solution with a lighting system designed specifically for macro photography, the Adaptalux Studio. The flexible lighting arms allow for very precise placement of your light, nice and close to the subject, so you’re easily able to get the lights between the lens and flower.

We’re going to be exploring super macro photograph with the Aurogon lenses more in the future, so please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more macro photography tutorials, ideas and inspiration!