Photo Friday: learning the art of a closer shot

August 1, 2014August 1, 201444 Comments

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!

: Bronze Fennel – The umbel emerges

: Bronze Fennel – Umbel fully formed

: Naked Lady Lily with visitors!

: Musk rose with invaders 😦

: Abelia blossoms with a pollen encrusted Carpenter bee

: 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!

: Many Blueberries still on the bush and several pounds in the freezer for winter!

: Big Daddies! Can you see them?

: Naked Ladies all in a row and Miss Dixie my wild chicken! 🙂

: 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.

Ribbit

April 11, 201242 Comments

When we moved here there was grass, trees, and little else growing on our property. Over time we have carved gardens out of the grass, stopped using chemicals, and let a few areas go a bit to the wild side.

Why?

To make room for the little guys who keep the Farmlet bug and rodent free. Birds, snakes, spiders, and toads all do their job to help me keep the Farmlet a poison free zone.

I think it is working, because I have been seeing a lot of these guys around…

My little friend here is a Fowler’s Toad. It likes to burrow underground when it gets too cold in winter. Apparently, we now have quite a few of these here because we have many little toad holes this spring. I always wondered what came out of those holes.

Now your thoughts may differ, but I find him beautiful.

~*~

Photo Friday: garden spider surprise

June 17, 2011June 17, 201113 Comments

This week in the garden I found a Wolf Spider with her egg sack in tow…

The white round thing is the egg sack, but even so, she herself (legs included) was the size of a silver dollar. The bright silver bits in the lower right are the tines on my pitchfork. I left them in for size comparison.

Can’t see her? Oh, OK!

For a really close up view you can click the image and get as close as you like…

How’s that?

Personally, with the exception of Brown Recluse, I don’t mind spiders in my garden. They perform a beneficial service for me by ridding my plants of bad insects. She is obviously well fed living here in the compost pile. From the looks of her egg case, her babies will be hatching soon! Which means more hungry spiders to eat all those nasty flying Palmetto bugs hiding in there!

I have been partial to Wolf spiders since I was seven. Back then I was brave enough to touch that gigantic fluffy looking spider in the barn… Whereupon all her ‘fuzzy’ sprouted legs and went scurrying off her back! Lady Wolfspider will carry all her babies on her back for a while after hatching thus making herself look even more enormous as well as affording her progeny a bit of extra protection!