Signs of Spring

Now that it's March, we quickly start to look for signs of spring.  Of course, here in Wisconsin, that two days of warm weather sometime between now and mid-May.  We can dream though, can't we?

I've been looking through some past images and came upon the image here.  I remember taking it up at Legend Lake, WI where we have a home on the lake.  I used to take many upclose images of small things.  But lately, most of my subjects have been broader landscapes and cityscapes.  I still live to look at images like this because it gives a perspective that we rarely see or take the time to study.  These little mushrooms were growing out of a tree stump.  The mushrooms were less than an inch in diameter each.  It gives you and idea of the tiny details on each mushroom.

Maybe, I'll have to pull out the macro lens as I see signs of spring!

Diamond in the Rough

While this image is several years old now, I never tire of looking at it.  I call it 'Diamond Studded'.  It was a day much like last week, thick with fog but it was warmer then.  I was out getting the mail from the mailbox across the street and on my return caught a glimpse of water droplets collecting on the leaves of plants in my flower bed.  Most ask if I sprayed some water to create the effect as they can't believe it.  If I had, I doubt I could have created this scene with tiny droplets on the end of the leaves.   This was taken on a Canon 20D with a Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens.  I love this lens.  It's every bit as good as the Canon 100mm macro and while it's a little slower on the autofocus, I tend to manual focus on macro shots anyway.  

Reversing a Lens for Super Closeups

I've always been a fan of macrophotography . . . getting real close to show pattern and texture. I have a Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro lens which does a wonderful job. I've taken my share of floral macro images but I've always been intrigued by images that get super close. Most commonly, you see this with images with insects. There are several ways to achieve this. One way is through the use of extenders. These are nothing more than barrels that fit between your lens and the camera, extending the focal plane of the lens further away from the camera allowing the lens to focus at closer distances than the minimal focal distance specification of the lens. They are typically sold in kits which can be combined.

However, another way is taking a lens and mounting it backward! An adapter is needed to convert the end of the lens to something that will attach to the camera. Well I stumbled upon such an adapter from Haoda while looking for an adapter for a Zeiss Planar 50mm lens to mount on a Canon EOS camera. They have a reverse lens adapter that converts the kit lens (18-55mm or any lens with a 55mm thread) commonly sold with Canon digital Rebel cameras. The adapter is only $15 so since I had this kit lens lying around doing nothing, it seemed like something fun to try. It's interesting in that the 18-55mm lens, being a zoom, has a macro range on the lens, so you king of get two zoom ranges to work with. It takes a little getting used to and if you can shoot handheld, it's a little more flexible and somewhat quicker to compose and shoot. On a tripod, obviously, you can shoot at lower shutter speeds but the set up is a little more tedious due to how the lens focuses in a reverse configuration. The shots shown here are not necessarily works of art but examples of what can be achieved. More are located on my Flickr site.

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Welcome to my Blog!

I've been intrigued by blogging for quite some time. Somehow, I just have never tried it. So, here I am with my first ever attempt. I'm not sure exactly what I have to say or how I'll use it, but I know I will be posting photographs of my 'Daily Wanderings'. Maybe this should be called Daily Ramblings.

I spend a good deal of my time posting on Flickr but I just post photos there and don't have an opportunity to talk much about the photos I'm posting. I've been doing a lot of experimenting these days with film . . . I have an old Mamiya RB67 that I picked up for a song and a dance. I'm still learning how to use it but what I like about this camera is that it slows me down. It's not like digital where it's click, click, click. Slowing down allows me to think about what I'm doing, to compose more creatively, to be satisfied with my capture before I press the shutter button.

I am also experimenting with infrared photography. I took my old Canon 20D and converted it to shoot infrared. So far, I like what it does and I don't need long exposures. Perhaps, I'll do a posting sometime in the future on my workflow.

This past Friday, we were snowed in. Fifteen inches of snow just before Easter weekend! I didn't leave the house but I did find the time to take some macro photos. Above is my favorite of my blackberry. It was shot with my Canon 5D with a reverse lense mount using the 18-55mm kit lens.