THE BEST Macro

Photography expert Jens Heidler of Another Perspective shows off a neat effect you can create using various mixtures of liquid soap and sugar to create bubbles across the top of a drinking glass. The macro footage reveals all kinds of groovy patterns and gradients of color in the bubble slicks.

We’ve seen how pinball machines are made. Now, thanks to Gavin of The Slow Mo Guys, we can see exactly how they work as they kick steel balls around. He spent some quality time with Jersey Jack’s tricked-out Willy Wonka pinball machine to observe how its electro-mechanical playfield components work.

LaughsMicroscopically uses a scanning electron microscope to take us deeper and deeper inside of a series of integrated circuits dating from 1989 to 2001. These now “vintage” circuits are far less dense than today’s designs, but are still an amazing marvel of engineering viewed in this way.

Macro Room set up various objects and vessels filled with water or paint on a platform and then dropped spheres, pins and balloons on them. They captured the resulting explosions with a slow-mo camera that spun around its edge, creating wild visuals that look like they were computer-generated.

The guys over at COOPH are always sharing nifty photography tips and tricks. This time, they’ve posted a series of playful ideas you can replicate using just your smartphone, miniature figures, and everyday objects to create tiny worlds of whimsy that play with our expectations of scale.

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.

Macrofying’s video gives us a really, really, really up-close look at everyday objects. See if you can guess what you’re looking at before the camera zooms out. We managed to get a couple right, but most of them are pretty tricky to figure out. Be sure to check out their amazing flying macro zoom video while you’re at it.

Filmmaker Rus Khasanov is known for his use of macrophotography of liquids to create colorful abstract art. In this clip, he plays with light, dichroic filters, crystals, and bubbles to produce a hypnotic series of moving images.

Diver and underwater photographer Catrin Pichler introduces us the costasiella kuroshimae, also known as the “leaf slug” or “leaf sheep.” These tiny and unusual marine creatures bridge the gap between plant and animal, as they perform photosynthesis by storing the chloroplasts in the algae they feed on.

Mold takes many forms, from harmful to helpful, from toxic to delicious. But one thing we never thought mold could be is beautiful. Through the macro lens of Beauty of Science, enjoy this incredible close-up look at four kinds of molds used in food fermentation. As they grow, they look like plants on an alien landscape.

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.

Before his passing in 2019, scientist and photographer Andreas Kay captured some amazing imagery of the diverse lifeforms in Ecuador. We especially enjoyed this slow motion, macro footage of a tortoise beetle as it opens its wings and lifts off. He also rigged up a spherical treadmill to shoot footage of insects as they walk.

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.

Photographer Christopher Dormoy created this hypnotic and indescribable montage of macro imagery using a combination of ice, oil, paint, soap, and flowers. Blow it up full screen, and you’ll feel like the temperature in your room dropped by 30 degrees by the time you’re done watching.

Separated by a travel ban, The Slow Mo Guys’ co-host Gavin Free goes solo without his buddy Dan Gruchy in this abridged episode. With the help of Phantom Flex 4K camera and a Laowa probe lens, Gav decided to see what’s actually going on when an Apple Watch ejects water from its speaker ports after going for a swim.

Venus fly trap and sundew plants are known for their carnivorous desire for insects of all kinds. Another Perspective captured some incredibly crisp macro footage of bugs and snails as they attempted to escape from this peril. We were particularly impressed by the beetle who chewed its way out of the plant.

Filmmaker Jan van Ijken captured this amazing microscopic scale time-lapse footage of the development of an amphibious alpine newt. Watch in awe as it grows from a single cell to a complete organism in just 6 minutes. More here.

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.

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.

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.