Moss repays a camera more than almost any plant its size, because most of what makes it lovely shows only up close: the capsules swaying on their stalks, the leaves lit from behind, the beads of water it carries after rain. That same closeness is the difficulty, since at this range light, focus and the faintest breath of wind all work against you. A little method beats expensive kit here.
Wait for soft light and damp air
Moss looks its best under gentle, even light, which makes an overcast day a gift rather than a disappointment. Bright sun is the thing to avoid: it burns out the pale capsules, drops hard black shadows between the shoots and drains the colour from everything. The half hour after rain is the moment to be out, when the plants are plumped up, glowing and dotted with water. Wind is the other quiet saboteur of close work, because at high magnification a shoot stirring a single millimetre turns to mush in the frame; find shelter, wait for a lull, or steady the stem with a twig held just outside the picture.
Get down to its level
The usual mistake is to photograph moss from standing height, looking down on it as a flat green smear. The picture comes alive only when the lens drops to the height of the capsules themselves, so be ready to kneel, lie down, or rest the camera straight on the ground. A phone or a camera with a screen that tilts saves your neck a good deal of strain in that position. A beanbag, or even a folded glove, props the camera at an awkward low angle more easily than a full tripod, though a tripod whose centre column swings horizontal is worth having if you photograph moss often.
Tame the shallow focus
The closer you focus, the thinner the slice of sharpness becomes, until only a sliver of a single capsule sits crisp while the rest dissolves. Switch off autofocus, which hunts hopelessly among the shoots, and set the point by hand. A smaller aperture, meaning a higher f-number, deepens the sharp zone, though stopping down too far softens the whole frame through diffraction, so there is a sweet spot to find around the middle of the range. When you want a whole forest of sporophytes sharp from front to back, focus stacking is the technique: take a run of frames shifting the focus a touch through the subject, then blend them in software. It asks for a still subject, which is one more reason to wait out the wind.
Wet it, and hunt the sporophytes
A small spray bottle of water is the most useful thing in a moss photographer's pocket. A light misting deepens the colour, coaxes open leaves that had curled shut in the dry, and strings droplets along the shoots that catch the light beautifully. The real prize is the sporophyte, the slender stalk and its capsule lifted above the cushion; these are at their most photogenic shot against a dark background or with the light coming through them from behind, so the translucent stalks seem to glow. A sharp frame of leaf and capsule is also half the work of naming a moss later, which dovetails neatly with how to identify moss.
Phone or camera, it scarcely matters
A current phone takes excellent moss pictures, especially in its macro mode, and a clip-on macro lens costing a few pounds pushes it closer still; tap to set focus, lock the exposure, and brace your elbows. A system camera with a true macro lens goes further again, reaching life-size reproduction, easy focus stacking and real control over how the background melts away. Either route works. What decides the picture is the eye and the patience behind it, not the badge on the body.
Leave the patch as you found it
Working close tempts you to tidy the scene, plucking away a stray leaf or snapping off a stem that crosses the frame. Do as little of that as you can, and put nothing dead back in to fake a result. Resist trampling the surrounding cushion to reach one good capsule, since a moss bank is slow-grown and scars easily, a point the field-craft in collecting moss responsibly dwells on for good reason. The aim is to walk away with the photograph and leave the moss looking as though nobody had been there at all.