Macro question..

As most will know I'm still getting to know my Pentax K100D purchased from Jessops in their special bundle which included a telephoto lens etc...you probably know the one anyway, what I wanted to ask is, when using the lenses, must the camera be set to Macro everytime for best results...all advice appreciated. Thanks

There is no macro setting on the camera, you need a dedicated macro lens or an adapter to shoot macro.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking really...

the best way to start is with the P mode and then try to experiment with the different modes.
I find my self using P for the quick shots and Av or M for the rest.
In all I think that Av is used mostly by me but since I have my expodisc I am playing with the M mode.

There sure is on the screen a butterfly symbol comes up and it says Macro..

Well, looking at page 50 of the manual, it states "Macro: Lets you take vibrant pictures of flowers and other small subjects at short range."

If this is what you want to do, then try that mode for starters. If not, then try some of the others, whichever suits what you're trying to achieve. Then when you're happier with how your camera works, try taking charge of the aperture size (using Av mode) to blur the backround or ensure everything from near to far is sharp.

Read books, talk to other photographers and, above all, play with your camera, there's no better way to learn.

Dan

You mean the picture mode for macro

The camera has multiple picture modes that are designed for various types of photography. You could use the "P" mode and tell the camera what to do to get the same results, but the picture modes are there so you don't have to learn

The "Macro" mode will set things up for "vibrant pictures of flowers and other small subjects at short distances". BUT, you do need a macro lens to get real macro shots. The macro mode cannot make things go closer - it just affects the choice of shutter speed and aperture that the camera uses

To be honest, you're probably best leaving it on "Auto Pict" until you can sit down and work out the P, Av, Tv modes

EDIT: Crossed in the post with Don

Matt

We were probably both downloading the manual, Mott!

Dan

Welcome to Mott and Don....

Macro photography is technically demanding but very rewarding. The best place to start is probably a good book on the subject, followed by lots of experimentation and practice.

You don't need to buy a macro lens straight away - there are cheaper ways of getting macro shots such as 2x converters, extension tubes, reversing lenses, even close up lenses. When you are hooked you will know because you will then want a macro lens.

This is how I learned what little I know about photography:

My first camera was (and still is) an MZ-7, which has the same auto-picture mode as the K100D.

In the beginning I just left the camera on AP mode and clicked away. The algorithm which works out which scene mode to use is amazing, it is almost never wrong. That doesn't mean to say that it's better than you can be, but it's good enough to know what you're shooting and make what it thinks are the sensible choices.

As my interest in photography developed, I began to watch what the camera was doing. At this point it was still in full auto mode, but now I was watching what it did and learning from what worked and what didn't. About this time I joined my first online photography community and began to learn more from what I saw there (note, when I post a photo for sharing or critique it always has the settings with it, because this is where I learned a lot of what I know about achieving certain effects)

Here I made my first forays into the "creative" modes, Av, Tv and M (in these days of DSLRs, P now counts too since it gives more control over colour, sharpening etc).

To begin with I did this only when I disagreed with the cameras selection, but as my confidence and knowledge grew still further I stopped using the "dummy" modes altogether.


It may not be the best way to learn photography, and I am certainly not the best photographer in the world, but that's how I did it. The scene modes get a lot of bad press from the experienced photography crowd, but I think they can be a useful learning tool if used correctly.

Scene modes can do more than just adjust aperture and shutter speed. They could, and do, make adjustments to saturation, sharpness, colour, etc to enhance the type of picture taken.

This the mysterious "Food" setting uses a small aperture and boosts colour saturation to make food look more appetising. I'm just going to cook an omellette now, so perhaps I'll give it a go!

good point

presumably (and I'm assuming here as I've never even activated the scene modes on my *istDL2), any adjustments made would be reflected in the EXIF data so you can see what the camera did later on? Can anyone confirm this? (I'd do it but a friend has borrowed my *ist and the K10D has no scene modes).