Shooting tiny natural stuff is a ton of fun. And if you've got the RF18-150mm, it has some macro chops that don't get talked about much—but they're there. In manual focus, this lens can lock onto subjects just 12 cm away (that's like 5 or 6 cm from the front glass), and at 35mm you get 0.59× magnification, which is honestly not bad. Dedicated macro lenses are still the way to go for the best results, but with this capable, budget-friendly one you can still get some really nice shots.
Focus bracketing (Focus bracketing)
The biggest headache with this kind of shot is that depth of field is tiny—especially with the lens wide open to grab more light. So your best move is “focus bracketing” , which you'll find on the R10 in the Red menu, tab no. 6.
This little mushroom is barely 3 centimeters tall. I shot it with the camera on a mini tripod, lit it with a small LED flashlight I always carry, set manual focus as close as I could to the subject, and let the camera fire off 30, 40, 50 frames—however many you feel like—refocusing a little farther with each shot. Then in DPP® or any editing app, you stack the frames so you can build up enough depth of field to keep the parts of the subject you care about sharp.
This little snail was about 1 cm across—seriously tiny—but thanks to stacking I could get the whole spiral sharp, plus part of the leaf surface.
That said, you can also nail a single-shot photo with enough depth of field—like this one, shot at 50mm where magnification is about 0.44×, stopping down the aperture a bit and using a little fill light. In this case, a cheap €3 LED flashlight from a discount store.
Photobones isn't that a ping-pong ball?
Nope, it's a tiny mushroom—but if it were that size, haha...