The last post covered some of the general perks of owning a point & shoot digital camera. This time, let’s take a look at a specific feature that’s worth some special attention – the built in macro mode.
Macro photography is a lot of fun and allows a view of the world that most people never encounter. Like most things photographic, the downside to macro photography is price; a good macro lens for your DSLR will cost you several hundred dollars and will almost always be a prime, meaning no zoom ability. While macro lenses can be used for regular shooting as well, they’re overall usefulness is really limited to a specific set of applications (if this sounds like common sense, that’s because it is – they don’t call it a macro lens for nothing).
Enter the P&S camera, with built in macro mode. The standard focus mode of a P&S limits how close to an object the camera will try to focus; switching to macro mode, the camera is instructed to only attempt to focus at close range. And P&S cameras can get close! The reasons for this are technical, but the point is, you can get really close.
This photo was taken with my Canon SX 100 IS in macro mode. Thankfully, the dragonfly was a big of a ham and let me get in close – so close, in
fact, that the front of my lens was resting on the log just in front of him. As you might have guessed, however, this only works well with tolerant subjects, which are usually inanimate, like the leaf in the photo below.
Of course there’s a downside; the macro mode only works across the first half of the zoom range
on my SX 100, which means you must be close to the subject for it to work. Still, it beats having to buy specialized equipment. And, as I said before, the small size of a P&S makes it easy to carry with you, allowing you the option of regular or macro photography at any time.
