Today, as we continue with the 5th episode of season 2 of the “dSLR Know-How with Tamron” series in our ‘Photography Thursday’ edition of Video Corner, we look at macro (close-up) photography. The video briefly touches on what magnification ratio is, how it effects depth of field (which is always on the shallow side in macro photography), how backgrounds can play an important role in a good macro photograph, and a couple other macro photography tips.

Every other Friday we have the opportunity to interview a photographer from SmugMug.com and browse through some of their favorite photographs. Today we're in for an extra-special treat. Not only do we get an interview, but we also get to browse through double the amount of photographs by UK hobbiest photographer Brian Valentine. The macro and refraction photographs below are nothing less than stunning. Enjoy!

Macro digital photography has to be one of the most underrated and under-practiced aspects of digital photography. The fact is that it’s just not "close-ups". Macro digital photography is so much more. Taking digital photography of macro, particularly abstract, is an incredibly stimulating art form. One of the reasons why macro digital photography is so good because the objective is to get as much detail as you can. And the subject is not often distinguishable. You can turn a basic household item into a brightly colored world filled with shapes, lines and form. It allows the mind to take a break from categorizing everything and lets the imagination just enjoy the art form.

It seems like I’m posting about a contest every couple of days lately. In actuality, we run close to 30 contests a year. THIRTY CONTESTS A YEAR. That’s crazy. These Contest Corner Challenges, in fact, run every 3 weeks, which brings us to tonights WORD (oh wait, this isn’t the Colbert Report)…

Macro photography is a fun way to get close up shots look stunning. If you want to get technical, the real definition of macro is the image on the film or sensor being as big as the actual subject. In this case, the camera lens must have the capability to focus on an area as small as approximately 24×36mm because this size is the size of the image on the sensor. This is frequently referred to magnification of 1:1.