Macro Fundamentals - the Course

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What happened to the Agentic AI Archival Assistant that I have been plodding through for half a year. The more work I put into this project the less  helpful the output became. Why was this? The reason was very simple - the inputs with which I was training the AI search tool were no longer reliable. Many of the content blocks that I was relying upon had been created almost a decade ago and, in many cases, only partially expressed what I would consider to be accurate and current information. Trying to correct or augment the content led to content blocks that were confusing and sometimes contradictory. It also became apparent that a given subject may be  handled by dozens of different videos, livestreams, and written articles, further increasing the number of minor variations and resulting in less consistent outputs and, by extension, less reliable content.



With the transition to the Livestream format, my treatment of a given topic became more condensed while also spreading it out among many different live discussions. This made the process of isolating subject matter more difficult and error-prone. With each passing month my output of content became both more accurate and complete while also spreading it out in ways that made indexing the material more problematic and confusing.

As I became more frustrated I found myself focusing more on the quality of my livestream content and less on the extraction of useable meta-content. To summarize the problem, my content is spread across 400 livestreams, more than 600 full-length videos, 8-years of blog posts, Patreon posts, Discord discussions, and AfterStack, Tangent, and Crystal Art videos



The information is there, but it is fragmented so a beginner has no idea where to start. An intermediate user can’t remember where I discussed a particular concept. An AI agent has to search through thousands of unrelated conversations. Over the years my equipment has changed, my understanding has deepened, my opinions have matured. During that same decade I have made mistakes, some trivial and some not so much. Some of these mistakes were caught right away and some of them are still buried under a mountain of content. Many of these mistakes have been corrected, but many have not. Some subjects are dealt with in a single livestream session while others are spread across numerous streams and many weeks.   

The Solution


To make this body of work useful to other human beings, it needs to be corrected, cleaned up, organized into carefully curated categories, and indexed for fast and accurate searching. To this end                                                         

I have broken down all of my previous work into a collection of 10 well-defined content Volumes (see below), each consisting of several Chapters. Each Chapter will become the subject of a stand-alone Livestream event and will include live demonstrations, video clips, and interviews where appropriate. Each Chapter will have a dedicated Livestream. The Livestreams, averaging about one every week, will eventually accumulate to become a complete collection of “required macro knowledge”. While every concept, piece of equipment, and technique has been explored somewhere in my back catalog, every lesson has been reorganized, corrected, expanded, and simplified to form a core component of this foundational macro knowledge base.

Overall structure

This project will, in essence, replace 50 unrelated Livestreams (one half of my annual Livestream output) with the 50 very specific Chapters of the Macro Fundamentals course

This body of work could form the basis of:

  • a structured textbook;

  • a university-level course;

  • a searchable macro photography knowledge base;

  • an AI-ready macro corpus; or

  • a roadmap for every future student.









With no further delay, here are the 10 Volumes and 50 chapters that make up the core curriculum of “Macro Fundamentals”

Volume I.   Macro Foundations

Chapter 1. What Is Macro Photography? (Presented during Macro Talk at 8pm on Tuesday, July 14th, 2026

  • true macro

  • close-up vs macro

  • reproduction ratio

  • why magnification matters

  • common myths


Chapter 2. Image Quality (for presentation during Macro Talk Too, at 2pm on Thursday, July 16th, 2026)

  • sharpness

  • resolution

  • contrast

  • detail

  • perception



Chapter 3. Understanding Magnification

  • sensor size

  • field of view

  • working distance

  • perspective

  • crop factor myths


Chapter 4.  Exposure

  • aperture

  • shutter

  • ISO

  • exposure triangle

  • ETTR


Chapter 5.    Diffraction

  • Airy disks

  • aperture limits

  • practical stopping down

  • balancing DOF


Chapter 6. Depth of Field

  • why DOF disappears

  • magnification effects

  • diffraction compromise

  • practical choices




Volume II   Optics


Chapter 7.    Macro Lens Design

  • standard macro lenses

  • enlarger lenses

  • microscope objectives

  • process lenses

  • reversing lenses




Chapter 8.    Lens Performance

  • aberrations

  • flat field

  • CA

  • field curvature

  • distortion

Chapter 9.    Tube Lenses

  • finite vs infinity

  • relay optics

  • focal length choices

  • telecentricity

Chapter 10.   Microscope Objectives

  • finite

  • infinity

  • plan

  • apo

  • NA

  • correction collars



Chapter 11.    Resolution Limits

  • Rayleigh

  • Abbe

  • Nyquist

  • sensor sampling

  • MTF

Volume III   Cameras

Chapter 12.    Sensors

  • pixel size

  • QE

  • dynamic range

  • read noise

  • full well




Chapter 13.    Camera Selection

  • DSLR

  • mirrorless

  • crop

  • full frame

  • medium format




Chapter 14.    RAW

  • what RAW actually is

  • de-bayering

  • bit depth

  • myths

Chapter 15.    Electronic Shutter

  • rolling shutter

  • vibration

  • flash sync

Volume IV     Lighting

Chapter 16. The Nature of Light

  • reflection

  • refraction

  • scattering

  • polarization

Chapter 17.   Diffusion

  • apparent source size

  • softness

  • efficiency

  • material comparison

Chapter 18.    LED Lighting

  • CRI

  • TLCI

  • spectra

  • flicker

  • color temperature

Chapter 19.    Flash

  • duration

  • freezing motion

  • modifiers

  • twin flash

Chapter 20.    Polarization

  • crossed polarization

  • specular reflection

  • birefringence

  • practical setups




Volume V.   Mechanical Systems

Chapter 21.    Stability

  • vibration

  • resonance

  • damping

  • support systems

Chapter 22.    Focus Rails

  • manual

  • motorized

  • calibration

  • backlash

Chapter 23.    Camera Motion

  • subject motion

  • camera motion

  • lighting motion

Chapter 24.   Building a Macro Rig

  • priorities

  • upgrades

  • budget




Volume VI.   Focus Stackin

Chapter 25.     Why We Stack

Chapter 26.    Step Size

Chapter 27.      Stack Capture

Chapter 28.       Zerene

Chapter 29.        Helicon

Chapter  30.        Artifact Recognition

Volume VII.           Subjects

Chapter 31.    Insects

Chapter 32.    Flowers

Chapter 33.    Minerals

Chapter 34.    Seeds

Chapter 35.    Water

Chapter 36.     Everyday Objects

Volume VIII.     Image Design

Chapter 37.    Composition

Chapter 38.    Background Control

Chapter 39.     Color

Chapter 40.      Visual Storytelling




Volume IX    Workflow

Chapter 41.    Planning

Chapter 42.    Capture Workflow

Chapter 43.     File Management

Chapter 44.    Post Processing

Chapter 45.    Printing




Volume X   Mastery

Chapter 46.    Diagnosing Problems

Chapter 47.     Scientific Thinking

Chapter 48.    Equipment Myths

Chapter 49.    Building Your Own Equipment

Chapter 50.    The Future of Macro Photography




A word on Workflow & Standardization:

This progression/workflow is very similar to what one would encounter in any adult education setting with

each lesson depending naturally on the one before. Coincidently, this workflow also makes AI indexing much more accurate and efficient.

By standardizing the structure of each chapter, when practical, viewers will quickly become accustomed to rhythm of the lesson. I have yet to finalize the structure of each Chapter, the overall  layout will answer each of these questions:

1. Definition

What is it?

2. Why it matters

Why should I care?

3. Underlying physics

What’s happening?

4. Practical implications

What changes in the studio?


5. Common mistakes

Where do people go wrong?

6. Summary




The AI Advantage:

This may well prove to be the most valuable feature of this model. Instead of the computer having to search through thousands of content blocks to answer a single prompt, it will be able to focus on  one or two Volumes and a small set of Chapters to greatly improve the  quality and specificity of the responses being drawn from  the rigorously curated and organize

The week ahead:

As noted above, I plan to produce one Chapter of the Macro Fundamentals course each week and I will try to alternate between using the Macro Talk and Macro Talk Too time slots each week and leaving the format for the second Livestream unaltered. This week is an exception to that plan as I would like to take the time to explain the project to the Thursday group, as was done with the Tuesday group. Here is your link for the Thursday stream - https://youtube.com/live/Y2h2rFVTVaI?feature=share


Saturday is a Pzoom day and the format will be as usual with a short segment reserved to look at the Constraint Challenge images for July (change only one parameter), and pick a winner.

Here’s your link to the event -


Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Allan Walls’ Pzoom Meeting

Time: Jul 18, 2026 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

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