I bought my camera (mumble) years ago and played with it, but never learned how to really use it. Reading the manual might have helped… 😛
This past week I was goofing around and removed the telephoto lens. I put the *shorter lens into the camera. I then set it to macro and took this shot from one foot away.
A closer look revealed detail I didn’t know was possible with my old camera!
So for the rest of the week I spent time in the garden practicing with my newly found macro mode and here are the results. They aren’t the best as most days were a tad breezy and I need a lot of practice, but I sure did have fun!
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- Bronze Fennel – The umbel emerges
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- Bronze Fennel – Umbel fully formed
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- Naked Lady Lily with visitors!
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- Musk rose with invaders 😦
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- Abelia blossoms with a pollen encrusted Carpenter bee
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- Monarda “Bergamot” With my eye I only saw the grey fuzz. I never knew about the lilliputian lavender cones!
And here are a few that were not macro, but fun to share with you!
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- Many Blueberries still on the bush and several pounds in the freezer for winter!
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- Big Daddies! Can you see them?
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- Naked Ladies all in a row and Miss Dixie my wild chicken! 🙂
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- One apple, really, only one!
So I wouldn’t call them ‘macro’ photographs, but the shorter lens and the macro setting sure gave me a closer and more clear shot than I have ever been able to get before! So now it will be:
Practice, practice, practice!
~*~
Have a blessed weekend!
~*~
NOTE: *I’m dead certain that shorter lens has a proper name, but I’ll be hanged if I can recall it.
Life on the Farmlet 
Love the photos. I recently purchased a used DSLR camera which is miles better than my old point and shoot that I used for years. With it comes a large learning curve on how to get it to perform like I want it to do. Like you it looks like I need a lot of trial and error and practice, practice, practice. 🙂 Keep up the great work.
Thank you; I will keep trying! 🙂
This is truly the best medicine to enjoy a positive energy and the nature like a melody!
Yes it is!
It is amazing what the camera can see that you can’t. These pictures are a great start. You will find many hidden worlds as you go on.
I look forward to further exploration, Tom! Now that the methods are starting to click it is becoming fun for me again!
Wow Lynda, NICE lense!:D
Y’know, I recall being told that it’s not the amount of (mega)pixels, but the quality of the lense that counts… You sure have made the case in point here, that’s for sure!
Now, whee to start? FANTASTIC detail; are you sure that it’s not a macro lense (what does it say on the side?)
Oh YUCK!! What ARE those nasty things on your beautiful rose?
I have that very same Phlox (I was just admiring her not half an hour ago: )
Wonderful photos! Glad you’re having fun: )
Deb, the lens lets me take photos in much the same way a 35mm lens does, the magic trick is to use this lens with the ‘macro’ or close up setting, and then move to within a foot of your subject and dial it in. It helps immensely when there is an absence of air movement as in the photo of the button and fabric. You simply don’t get a static subject in the wild! The nasty things are Japanese beetles, and they are a plague here! They eat everything and what they don’t eat is left looking like lace. (leaf veins)
In the phlox there are two Daddy Long leg spiders! You have to look closely in the middle. 😉
Oh I saw the Daddy-Long-Legs, all right…
(You weren’t kidding when you said they were HUGE: )
I was just totally blown away by the fact that it’s the same phlox as the one I’d just been looking at – y’see, they’re in a flower bed that I don’t always go to that often – so a very weird coincidence to see it in your photos… N’est pas?
Hope you have a great weekend…
How are you healing up, btw?
🙂
You too, Deb! As for the knee, it is heaps better but still giving me a bit of fit on uneven surfaces. Like my yard, LOL! The chickens, geese, dogs, moles, voles, etc. just don’t allow for a beautiful lawn. 😛
The definition of “a beautiful lawn” around here is, if it’s green and grows, it’s “grass” and no one’s too particular about the shape of the leaves; )
That is pretty much what we have, but it is not the classification of lawn that my neighbor would like to see… 😉
Looks like practice is making perfect. I have yet to go beyond the auto settings.
Joan, I ventured into manual camera settings in college when I took a class in B&W photography. My Pentax K-1000 didn’t have anything “auto” about it! Not to brag, but using a completely manual camera was pretty easy. These newfangled cameras that want to do everything for you make it HARD. Too many buttons, and menus and much finagling to try and get a decent shot!
You have a K1000?
LOL, ME TOO: )
Too funny!
It is a fantastic camera. Bar none.
Yes, it was (is?) affectionately known as The Student Camera. I would still use mine, but you really need your own darkroom to work on the perfection of your photographs. (burning and dodging) I loved working in the darkroom.
I never got the chance to experience developing film. *sigh* Maybe someday…
I imagine the chemicals and set up are a lot more expensive since the world has gone to the digital age. (I’m still lamenting the demise of Kodachrome too.)
You and me both…
Oh yeh, I know the naked ladies. 🙂 Very nice, and your photography is quiet effective.
Fran, it’s a regular nudist colony here… they are popping up and cavorting over our whole acre and in the strangest places too! 😉
Nice shots, Lynda.
My motto of practice, practice and more practice has definitely paid off and I’m sure yours will too.
I’ve found better success with trial and error and reading other photography blogs (more than reading the camera manual). I think it’s not until you put everything into practice with photography that you really understand exposure & light.
Vicki, your work is so lovely! I have a few friends who have really gotten into practicing and, like you, I can see the amazing results. As for photo blogs, are there any you have found to be the most helpful?
Mmmmm….not any one blog specifically, Lynda. But every time someone likes one of my posts, I check out their blog (and sometimes start following if they are a photographer and I like what I see). I also like blogs about the country and farming life (as I rarely get out into the countryside).
When you look at a photo, or blog full of photos, ask yourself why you like a particular photo. Ask yourself WHAT particular part of the photo you like best (e.g. colour, light, sharp focus, details, blur in the background, composition, subject etc.) Then fiddle about with the camera settings and try to capture the elements you like in someone else’s photo. I don’t mean copy someone’s photo. Just try to work out how they got their final result. Of course, you need to understand exposure and how to get good exposure too.
If you can make a pleasing image with ‘full’ AUTO, start using the ‘creative’ settings like landscape, macro etc on your camera.
Then move on and try to work out how to co-ordinate the ISO, f stop (aperture) and shutter speed. I think it’s worth reading some online tutorials for beginners and get an understanding of how the 3 relate to each other. Took me about 18 months before I really understood them. I am very slow thinking these days. I’m not a technical person and people find it strange that I’ve chosen such a technical hobby as using a DSLR camera, especially as I have intermittent brain fog and my short-term memory is appalling.
I think I’ve taken about 70,000 photos in 4 years now. I’ve only kept about 14,000 and I’m trying to delete the worst this year and file them in folders. Don’t waste time trying to edit bad photos. Delete them.
Last week I took my lightweight Point & Shoot camera out on my walk and took about 150 photos. Every single one was very blurred. I’m used to holding a heavier camera now, so couldn’t hold the lightweight little camera steady. LOL
Thank you for your advice, Viki! Had to chuckle about the thousands of photos. Guilty!
Wow! What a difference! DH has such a camera but hasn’t explored its potential yet. For me it’s still the point and shoot!!!!
Doreen, sometimes I miss the old point and shoot! 😉
I feel uncomfortable making a “big deal” out of taking a photo, so quickly taking a ‘shot’ is more to my liking. Sometimes it works….other times, not so much, but with the digital, “delete” is always there!!!!!
You have a point! (all those failed prints were a drain on the pocketbook!)
And I have the blank negatives to prove it!!!!! LOL!!!!!!
Boxes and boxes of them…
Ah yes, SO many shots that only exist in my imagination. *sigh* There was nothing worse than getting back a roll of developed, unexposed film):
Like you, many things in life would be utilized to the fullest if I would just read the manuals! And then, practice – or finding time to practice is the next feat! You’re doing a lovely job with that macro setting. The details of life are often better seen if only we learn to use the tools we already posses!!
“The details of life are often better seen if only we learn to use the tools we already posses!!”
No truer words, Lori!
I am really having fun with my camera this time around! 😀
My gosh you did very well Lynda it is a chance you found your second macro lens. A good surprise isn’t it!
wish you a nice day
Thank you, Chantal! It has been hit and miss for subjects since this post. Today was a total miss. Zip, Zilch, Nada.
Oh, but there is always tomorrow!
Hoping you had a lovely day too!
Great photos! That poor rose is a goner. Those Japanese beetles are nasty.
The outside of the lens should tell you what it is for specs. You can Google it then and get the exact name from the manufacturer.
For example, my go to lens is a Canon 28 to 135 zoom and the outside will say both 28 and 135 at each end of the range for zooming it. When I plugged that into Google, it came up with:
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/ef_lens_lineup/ef_28_135mm_f_3_5_5_6_is_usm
Nancy
Mr. Basey will be harshly pruned, dug up, and his roots hosed off before he goes to the Mountain Farmlet to live. The scent of a musk rose is always magnificent, but his is intoxicating! There will be more blooms.
The telephoto lens in the link is very similar to mine! Now I need to try and find my shorter lens! Thanks for the help, Nancy!
And wonderful close-up photos they are!
Truth be told, I haven’t read the manual on my camera yet (and I have had it for several years). I seem to have a strange aversion to manuals or something like that. I bet it can do a lot more things that I just don’t know about. 😉
Thank you, Mary. Yes, I understand your aversion. They are just dry as toast, aren’t they?
You know, that’s really the problem with my little point and shoot. There are dials and windows and messages and crap all over the place! And the manual is terrible. Well, it might be ok, but the index is bad, and I never can find what I want. Grump, grump.
Part of my problem is that there isn’t time in my life to work on my writing AND to work at becoming a really proficient photographer. It’s just that I see all the gorgeous work people are doing with their cameras, and I go, “OH. I want to do that.” Well, I could, but I’d better give up a pretty big chunk of something else. Sleeping and eating come to mind. Or work. I always could quit work. But then, I couldn’t eat. It’s always something.
I’m glad to read that your knee is doing ok, even if it isn’t perfect yet. Healing takes time, too!
Linda, there is always something, that is true. But we all need something to help us unwind too. What do you do to relax? (I suspect it is writing) One battle you have already won in photography is being able to frame an interesting subject. To me that is the number one item anyone needs to learn in photography. You have the eye, and the rest will come later when you do have time. I am certain of it! 🙂
Good job!
Thank you, Patti!