Setting up a good macro shot

TenLeftFingers

I'm fairly new to photography and I'm trying to replicate a shot I saw, where the subject (a bird on a footpath) in the forground was in sharp focus, and the footpath itself lost focus drastically over just a few inches into the background.

When I tried to replicate it, this 'focus gradient' or whatever you want to call it, actually covers a longer stretch and isn't as dramatic. Is it that my camera just cant cut it? I have a Fuji Finepix S5500.

Thanks,
merlin

Oriel

Set the mode to 'A' and then set the aperture to 2.8, or however low it can go.

Zillah

Its called depth of field. The smaller the depth of field, the less that is in focus at any one time.

The larger the aperture, the smaller the depth of field.

So, like sinecurea mentioned, use an aperture like 2.8 or something bigger (uh, bigger in real world size, numerically smaller in f/stop...) and you should get the effect you're looking for.

EDIT:

Depth of field has all sorts of cool uses actually, not just for macro. Its especially useful for things like portraits where you can blur the background to highlight the subject.

TenLeftFingers

Cool! Thanks for the insight. That did the trick. I think my cameras aperature doesn't go high enough to get the effect I want. .Until I can afford a better camera, I might just use The Gimp to fake the effect I'm looking for.

bp_me

merlin_bar wrote:

Cool! Thanks for the insight. That did the trick. I think my cameras aperature doesn't go high enough to get the effect I want. .Until I can afford a better camera, I might just use The Gimp to fake the effect I'm looking for.

Reading a review of a similar "high-zoom" camera recently, it was mentioned that f8 gave an equivilant DOF to f45 on a SLR. I don't know why this is, but could help explain why the background doesnt blur sufficiently, even at max aperature (smallest f number).

elven

There's an interesting discussion here with examples of pictures taken with various compact cameras, to show the shallow depth of field possible in different situations... you might find it handy. I was certainly surprised to see what you can do with one of those things.

(In case you hadn't heard the word 'bokeh' before, it's the pattern you get in the out of focus bits where it turns points of light into circles (or hex/octagons etc, depending on the lens))

Valentia

bp_me wrote:

Reading a review of a similar "high-zoom" camera recently, it was mentioned that f8 gave an equivilant DOF to f45 on a SLR. I don't know why this is, but could help explain why the background doesnt blur sufficiently, even at max aperature (smallest f number).

I often wondered about that too. The DOF in some of the compacts always amazed me.

Thanks for the link elven. Looks interesting. I've been thinking of getting a compact, this will help me decide.

EDIT: I just noticed I'm a member of that group already. I'll hve to try and get out more. Information overload is disrupting my brain!!

bp_me

Valentia wrote:

I often wondered about that too. The DOF in some of the compacts always amazed me.

Thanks for the link elven. Looks interesting. I've been thinking of getting a compact, this will help me decide.

Something to do with the significantly smaller sensor size maybe?

alb

The 'macro' setting, on compacts that have it, usually gives a very small DOF, despite the usual lack of a large aperture. My old compacts can give me a small DOF at macro range similar to what I get with my 50mm at f1.4. So to answer your question, stick it on macro mode, and get as close to your subject as you can focus