Hate macro, love macro
I know, the title is ought. Lots of people love macro photography. Photographing little insects, flowers, and everything else that is sized less than an inch. But macro photography is not really my cup of tea.
I use a small sensor camera, and these cameras are known for their huge depth of field.
Still I would like to have shallow depth of field too like the big boys for creative purposes.
So the macro mode on my camera is my best friend when I want to have shallow depth of field.
All photographs by Wouter Brandsma
This, to me, is one of the great features of the Ricohs. I love using it! No. 1 and 2 above are wonderful, but they all tell a poignant story.
I think utilizing your camera’s macro feature enables you to force or push the viewer to see precisely what it is that you want them to see. To focus them upon what you believe to be the focus of the image.
Hi Wouter! Good post! If there is something I really miss on the small sensor cameras, it’s the ability to play with DoF outside the macro mode. I’m using the same “macro” technique as you did in your post. Unfortunately, it’s not very useful for portraits. We can only hope that the next Ricoh GRD/GX camera will use large sensor and of course, bright lens
I agree Andrew that the macro mode can be used very well for selective focussing, just like forkboy describes. But it only works within very close range. So Pavel makes a very good point, and a larger sensor will be my (and Pavel’s) number one feature request for the next Ricoh GRD/GX camera.
Cheers,
Wouter
The macro mode on Ricoh cameras is great and your pictures are proof of that. I agree that it is nice to play with selective focus sometimes but a big sensor would kind of take away the benefit of a fast lens. It is difficult to find a compromise in this buit a teleconverter for 90mm should give shallow DOF wide open at close to medium distances even outside the macro range.
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