Macro photography has changed the way I view the world.
When you look through a macro lens, you see things very, very differently
because you see more detail.
I had a rock climbing accident and I badly injured my left ankle,
which took me out of climbing and mountaineering for quite some time.
All of a sudden I had this void of time where I wasn't climbing and doing mountaineering,
I learned how to use my camera properly.
I spent the time at local nature reserves because I wasn't quite so mobile.
And I discovered macro photography.
Moving from a 5D Mark IV to an EOS R5
has been an absolute game changer for me for macro photography.
Before, we were always relying on stabilisation within the lens,
but this time, the actual camera body itself has stabilisation
and it will work with any lens to give you an enhanced stabilisation.
So you can get away with using even slower shutter speeds, basically, handholding.
I'm photographing things which are moving quite a lot,
a tripod just isn't going to work.
The 100mm focal length for macro photography,
gives you a reasonable working distance, with a nicely compressed background.
I've been using the old EF 100mm macro lens for about 10 years.
The new Canon lens, the RF 100mm F2.8 L macro
allows you to do things quite differently.
This lens allows you to go to 1.4 times magnification.
That might not sound much, but it makes a huge difference.
One-To-One, which was the limit of the old EF 100mm macro lens.
Basically the size of the subject is, you're going to get a one-to-one relationship with the sensor in the camera.
1.4 times is going to be 40% larger.
When you combine that 1.4x magnification, and then the resolution of an R5, it's really quite staggering.
I've been photographing butterflies, where if you look at the full image,
you can see that it's an abstract of a butterfly's wing,
but when you zoom in on that 1.4x magnification and 45 megapixels,
one of the images I could see today, you could see the individual butterfly scales.
I could see iridescence of the light of some of the hairs on the butterfly's wing.
It's really quite staggering.
Because you have got stabilisation in both the lens and the body,
that basically means I can get away with using ridiculously slow shutter speeds.
The new RF 100mm macro lens focuses super quickly.
This lens actually has two motor systems in it, so it can jump across that range really, really quickly.
I've been photographing down to a 1/50 at quite high magnification,
which just was not possible before with the previous camera systems and the previous lenses.
Another key, new feature with this lens,
a totally new feature, is around spherical aberration control.
What this allows you to do is control the backgrounds and the foregrounds as to how in-focus or soft they are.
So this is going to have really exciting opportunities from a creative perspective.
Whether it be product photography, macro photography, or portrait photography.
As you go to the extremes of the spherical aberration control as well,
you could see the model's hair changing significantly.
For doing those head and shoulder type portraits,
it's a really great lens.
One of the things I've found with photography is I am always learning,
and always learning is a good place to be.
Using the new lens, with the R5, for me going forward is really, really exciting.
I'm going to be able to shoot in 8K at 1.4x magnification,
And with this lens having the dual focus system,
and also a silent focusing system: the USM system, so it's ultra silent,
I'm going to be able to do these macro videos,
which are going to be like nothing else I've been able to do before in the past.
It's going to open up a whole load of different creative opportunities. I can't wait.