Will turning off MACRO FOCUS assist in achieving shallow depth of field?

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Will turning off MACRO FOCUS assist in achieving shallow depth of field?
by Drew Keo on Mar 20, 2012 at 4:48:06 pm

Hello,

Will turning off the FOCUS MACRO function on the NX5U actually make it easier to achieve shallow depth of field on objects (they will be further than 80cm). I've always kept MACRO on, as it was the default and I thought it would help with achieving shallow depth. Any thoughts. Are there any reasons I might not want to turn it off? I'm not filming product closeups anytime soon.

Thanks,
Andrew

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Re: Will turning off MACRO FOCUS assist in achieving shallow depth of field?
by john lenihan on Mar 20, 2012 at 5:14:09 pm

The answer is no.

Focus and depth of field are independent and turning off macro focus won't affect the depth of field.

Here is a scenario that I have turned off macro focus.
I was shooting a baseball game from behind home plate through a net. I had the camera as close to the net as I could, which was about 2 inches from the front of the plastic lenscover deal.

I want to focus on the batter about 15 feet away. At first I had Macro focus on. The auto focus would work, and the netting acroos my lens was so close, it would virtually disappear. However, if I followed the player to first base, the autofocus would focus on the net.

With Macrofocus turned off, it would disregard the netting, and I could stay focused on the player or the outfield.

John

John Lenihan

LeniCam Video Productions
http://www.lenicamvideoproductions.com

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