THE BEST Macro

Jens of macro photography channel Another Perspective shares time-lapse footage of a soap bubble he says lasted 10 hours, then explains how he did it. The trick to keeping it alive so long involves the proper mix of water, soap, and glycerine, along with a little heat to keep it moving.

At first glance, you might think you’re looking at imagery of some distant part of the cosmos. In fact, everything you see in this short film was captured in a single shot on a 0.3 square inch area of a chemical reaction. These microscopic visuals were captured to spectacular effect by filmmaker Roman Hill.

From a multi-blade razor to a peanut M&M, Macro Universe takes us really, really up-close and personal with a handful of everyday objects. It always amazes us to see the tiny imperfections and textures in objects which look so smooth and perfect when viewed normally.

CG artist pedro3dbh’s short film sends us on an epic journey deep within the most mundane of objects, the tip of an ordinary ball-point pen. As the virtual camera zooms deeper and deeper into its structure, we eventually reach the subatomic level.

(Flashing Images) Photographer and video artist Thomas Blanchard created this incredibly vibrant music video for musician ÆDAN, capturing razor-sharp macro and time-lapse images of insects and plants, then amping up the color and contrast to stimulate our rods and cones. From the EP MICROCLIMAT.

Photographer Eugene Belsky shows off the kind of incredible close-up images that can be captured with the Venus Laowa 24mm probe lens and a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6k. The razor-sharp 4K footage gets intimate with a variety of edibles, and looks even more spectacular if you’ve got a display that supports HDR.

Velcro is an incredibly useful product. But it’s not exactly the easiest product to make visually interesting. The guys at London’s XK Studio made this happen by creating digital macro images of a burr plant which served as the inspiration for the brilliant simplicity of Velcro’s hook-and-loop design.

Motion designer Harrison Vincent’s short film features eye-popping close-up imagery inspired by macrophotography, but was created entirely with computer graphics. The breakdown video is just as fascinating. He also provided the Cinema4D source files for download.

Wildlife photographer David Weiller introduces us to one of nature’s many strange and wonderful creations. This alien-looking spiny devil katydid (panacanthus cuspidatus) is both intimidating and adorable as it does a kung fu pose and stares us down with its beady magenta eyeballs.

Photographer ZALUSKArt captured these impressively detailed time-lapse macro shots of ice crystals forming along the surface of soap bubbles as they’re frozen. Since each crystal is unique, every bubble is a one-of-a-kind, yet temporary work of art. More here.

If you take a felt tip marker and whip it fast enough, some ink will come out and create a spatter. The Slow Mo Guys decided to take this idea and amp it up by building a multi-pen spinner rig for a power drill, then let the ink fly in front of high-speed cameras. It’s a great way to make modern art too.

With builds like this and this, maker Giaco Whatever isn’t exactly known for his subtlety. So when he wanted to shoot a promo video for an upcoming Kickstarter campaign, he not only busted out one of those crazy Laowa probe lenses, but he fabricated a camera mount for an industrial robot to give it motion control.

Motion artist Thomas Blanchard’s colorful short film envisions an entire universe that lives inside of our eyes. What makes the vibrant visuals even more amazing is that they were entirely created with paint, ink, oil, and soap, without reliance on CGI or digital effects.

What you’re looking at might look like some kind of digitally-created imagery, but artist Rus Khasanov’s fascinating rainbow gradients were actually created by subjecting old CDs and DVDs to a variety of torture, and capturing the destruction under a macro lens. More here.

Martin Kristiansen of My Microscopic World used a polarized light source, a lab microscope, and an iPhone to capture these incredibly detailed, colorful, and otherworldly images of insect larvae, isopods, and tiny crustaceans. Check out more amazing close-up images on his Instagram feed.

Nature photographer Lothar Lenz captured this incredible macro slow-motion video of hornets in motion, as they fly around, sip water, and live their lives near his home in the Eifel region of Germany. The crystal clear sounds of the buzzing insects are especially immersive with headphones on.

This new channel is a collaboration by SciShow host Hank Green, musician Andrew Huang, and microorganism enthusiast James Weiss. It delves deep into the world of the trillions of microscopic organisms that surround us. We recommend starting off with Meet the Microcosmos for a primer to this fascinating universe.

Rus Khasanov’s experimental short film features vivid and colorful imagery created by shooting macro images of blobs of specially-formulated paints colliding to create new and larger formations, which are at times reminiscent of celestial bodies. Music by Dmitry Evgrafov.

Macrophotography experts Beauty of Science captured incredible close-up footage of the interactions between water, ice, vinegar, and other substances to demonstrate endothermic processes in front of a high-resolution thermal camera. If you haven’t seen Getting Hot, it’s worth a watch too.

Have you ever wondered what happens to a pill once you swallow it? In this video from photographer Ben Ouaniche of Macro Room, we get an incredible close-up look at medications as they dissolve in a bath of water. It appears the imagery was sped up for added effect.

Photographer Roman De Giuli is an expert at shooting macro images of colorful fluids for artistic effect. Most of his clips feature multiple shots, but this one is simply a 3-minute video of a single fluid, working all on its own to create visual magic. We know you don’t have an 8K display, so just watch at the highest resolution you can.

Macro photography series Beautiful Chemistry presents an up-close look at the formation and behavior of bubbles, with different chemical solutions and electrical charges producing some very different volumes, sizes, and arrangements of the air-filled orbs. The accompanying soundtrack is wonderfully soothing.

Artist Roman De Giuli captured this incredibly vibrant and sharp short film using paints, fluids, pigments, and sparkly bits poured onto paper. Shot with an 8K camera for extra detail, and enhanced with HDR if your display supports it. It’s amazing how much the images look like galaxies.

The Slow Mo Guys took their pricey Phantom high-speed camera, mounted it sideways, attached a macro probe lens to it, and then focused it inside the vortex created by a self-stirring tumbler. The resulting slow-motion footage is a truly amazing look at fluid dynamics.