Snapshots aren't just for 28mm. Why I carry a 100mm macro lens [LUMIX S 100mm F2.8 MACRO + LUMIX S9]

Hello everyone, and good evening.
It's Kamidera here.

The other day, I made a post on X.

Thankfully, it seems many people saw that post.
I received many reactions like, "I never thought of that" and "I want a macro lens."

But actually, what I wanted to convey most in that post wasn't a tutorial on how to use lenses.

Today, I'd like to write a proper follow-up, or rather, an answer key to that.

Starting with the topic of preconceptions

I think most photographers have this general understanding in their minds.

• Snapshots = 28mm to 50mm

• Macro lens = A somewhat specialized lens for taking large photos of nearby objects

I have no intention of denying this.
It is a fact that they are strong in those situations, and there is a reason why this perception has become generalized.

But the more faithful you are to this, the more scenery you become unable to see.

With 28mm and 50mm, it's "too common," so awareness of the framing itself tends to fade, and the moment a macro lens is labeled as "for close-ups only," it becomes a child that just waits for its turn inside the bag.

That is such a huge waste.

So, I'm going to talk about the combination I've been using all the time lately.

LUMIX S9 + LUMIX S 100mm F2.8 MACRO + Real-time LUT

I take snapshots with this set.
I will explain the appeal of this combination from four perspectives.

Appeal 1: The just-right sense of discomfort that is 100mm

First of all, as a basic premise, the 100mm focal length is quite different from the world we see with the naked eye.

The field of view we usually think we are "seeing" is actually quite wide-angle. I think I've heard somewhere that focal lengths like 35mm or 50mm are closer to our actual field of vision.

So, when you look at the world through a medium-telephoto lens, you get the feeling that information is being stripped away from the scenery on its own.

Just by pointing the lens at a casual corner of the street, unnecessary things are pushed out of the frame, and the subject stands out clearly.

How should I put it, it feels more like 'cropping' than 'shooting'.
Just framing the shot makes it strangely fun.

When you first start photography, I think you tend to be conscious of 'capturing everything' with standard to wide-angle lenses, but 100mm is the opposite; it's a focal length that constantly asks you 'what to discard'.

This sense of restriction felt incredibly comfortable to me.

Actually, I bought this lens in August 2024.
Moreover, I made a pretty strange move by purchasing it at the same time as the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN | Art.

Since they are both medium-telephoto lenses and the 85mm is faster, I thought I might not even use the 100mm macro if I bought them at the same time (and I also own the Sigma 90mm F2.8 DG DN | Contemporary), but in the end, buying both was the right decision. They have completely different characters and excel in different areas.

When I first bought them, I thought I would use the 85mm all the time, but before I knew it, I was taking the 100mm macro out into the city more often.

Appeal 2: A macro lens is like bifocal glasses

Next, let's talk about it being a macro lens.

A 100mm macro lens can, of course, get right up to the subject.
Flowers on the roadside, the veins of a leaf, the texture of rusted metal. You can easily get as close as you want, to a distance that a normal medium-telephoto lens can't capture.

So, what happens is,you can do everything from distant snapshots to close-up photography at the minimum focusing distance without changing lenses.It's amazing.

It's like bifocal glasses. I have perfect vision, so I might be using a loose metaphor here.

Both a 'perspective for viewing the city' and a 'perspective for peering at your feet' coexist within a single lens.While walking, you can take a shot of distant buildings, and the very next moment, crouch down to photograph water droplets on a spider web. All with the same lens.

I don't know of any other lens with such a wide range of expression.

Before I knew it, I started walking around the city with just this lens more often.

I used to think,as long as I go to a beautiful place and take a big, wide-angle shot, that's all it takes to make a good photo.I thought that was enough.

That's certainly fine in its own way, but it's not much different from what you'd find on a Google image search, and since there's always a 'correct' version of a photo taken at the perfect moment out there in the world, I gradually started to find those kinds of photos boring.

In that sense, using a 100mm macro lens makes it easy to give shape to my own unique perspective, which makes shooting incredibly fun.

A quick question for you, the reader: which side are you on—the one that wants to capture a composition that looks 'correct,' or the one that wants to capture your own unique perspective??

Appeal #3: Real-time LUT, the ultimate performance enhancer

This might be the part where my personal bias shines through the most.

I think the approach of shooting in RAW and then carefully refining it during post-processing is wonderful, of course. In fact, I touched on that in the LUT settings article I wrote previously.

But I am the kind of person who wants to be excited in the very moment I'm shooting.

Film cameras and digital SLRs have optical viewfinders. They are truly wonderful things, and the act of looking through the viewfinder is so much fun that I find myself looking through it for no reason at all.

With rangefinder cameras, I find myself fiddling with the focus ring to slide the image. With waist-level viewfinder cameras, I get lost in the left-right reversal while peering in, thinking, 'Whoa!'

I feel like, with mirrorless cameras, those primal experiences of photography are being lost.

You're shooting an image projected on a monitor. It's a feeling close to taking a screenshot on a smartphone; the camera handles the focusing automatically, and I can't help but feel a strong sense of 'being made to take the shot.'

I feel that real-time LUT is one solution for reclaiming that 'excitement lost in exchange for convenience'.

When you use a real-time LUT to shoot with your favorite color profile, the colors shown on the rear LCD are clearly different from the colors of the actual subject you see with your naked eye. This feeling of 'seeing the world in colors slightly different from reality' is, in itself, an extraordinary experience.

To put it another way, I don't want 'developing' to be more fun than 'shooting.' I believe that the moment of shooting should be the peak.

Also, if you're stressed about 'having to do RAW processing on the PC later—what a hassle, and I don't have the time,' you lose the motivation to take photos.

In my case, 99% of my captured images are Real-Time LUT straight out of the camera, so those worries are fundamentally resolved, and I'm living a very comfortable photographic life.

Appeal #4: The super important foundation of 'lightness'

I've talked about three things so far: perspective, range of expression, and color, but honestly, no matter how interesting the theory is, it's meaningless if you can't take it out with you.

The combination of the S9 and this 100mm macro is quite compact for a full-frame system.

The S9 is about 486g (body + battery + SD card).
The 100mm macro is about 298g.
Combined, they are about 784g.

Old-school full-frame SLRs could weigh around 900g for the body alone. Compared to that, I think this lightness really stands out.

The benefits of it being light are obviously huge, but what I'm really grateful for is that there's less of a 'I'm taking pictures' pressure. I'm truly grateful for this.

When you hold a viewfinder up to a bulky, SLR-like body, an atmosphere inevitably forms around you that says, 'Oh, that person is taking pictures.' It's not a bad thing, but when you want to casually snap photos in the city, it can feel a bit heavy or uncomfortable.

In contrast, with this system, that pressure is significantly reduced.
Even if you point the lens at a leaf on the side of the road or aim it down the tracks, you can blend in with an air of 'maybe that person walking by is just holding their smartphone'—or so I hope.

The S9 + LUMIX 100mm macro is a one-of-a-kind combination that balances specs and size. You could call it an L-mount privilege.

Perspective, range of expression, and the joy of color.
I think all of that is possible precisely because of this lightness.

I don't think my argument so far is for everyone.

It might be a bit late to say this, but I'll be honest.

If you're the type who just wants to get a shot without any failures, this approach probably isn't for you. 28mm or 50mm lenses are overwhelmingly easier to handle, and for those who want a standard workflow, I think it's more rational to assign specific uses to each lens.

Furthermore, moves like quitting RAW processing and canceling your Lightroom subscription are not something I would recommend to everyone. Obviously.

As someone who dabbles in image processing engineering, I even thought that canceling Lightroom might be an act of betrayal. I even switched from Lightroom to Capture One (the perpetual license version) just because I didn't like subscriptions.

But in the end, even though I spent a lot of money to buy Capture One, I've only launched it about 10 times in total. It was a wasteful investment, but I've come to view it as a 'loss cut' to confirm my own values.

Back to the point, the reason I can't let go of this [S9 + 100mm macro] combination is because I want to savor the joy of framing itself. I want to cherish the excitement while I'm shooting. And because I want to spend as little of my limited free time as possible on things other than photography, and be freed from the development process.

I don't intend to recommend this to everyone, but if there's someone out there who thinks, 'I might actually get that,' then that alone makes writing this article worth it.

For those who want to update their perspective on photography

I intend to continue searching for ways to engage with photography that excite me. I plan to write about that trial and error without holding anything back in my membership.

For example, the 100mm macro is my answer right now.
But in half a year, I might be saying something completely different. I want to record that entire process.

In my membership, I share more in-depth stories about the perspective of 'why I choose this,' not just regarding gear, but also about how to view photography, similar to what I've written in this article.

If you've recently felt 'my photography has become a bit of a rut', you might be hitting the same wall as I am.
My goal is to create a place where, when you finish reading my articles, the outline of what you want to shoot becomes clearer than before.

Specifically, I write articles like this.
It's 580 yen per month. I'd be happy if those who are interested would take a look.

Click here for the membership entrance

Thank you for reading this far.
See you in the next article!

Bonus: Gear used in this article

Here is the gear that appeared this time.
If you're interested, please check it out.

Camera: LUMIX S9

Lens: LUMIX S 100mm F2.8 MACRO

*The above includes affiliate links.