Surprisingly hairy

Our eyes are pretty amazing, when they're working properly. We can focus on something that is just a few cm from our eye though that isn't much fun, or really far away. We can see in the dark much better than most people think. But there are limits on the resolving power of our eyes. The number is about one tenth of a mm. (for the metrically illiterate that's about .004 of an inch)

A camera with a good macro lens in steady hands or on a tripod can easily capture more details than we can see with our eyes. It's been fun taking pictures and seeing details on screen that my eyes can't make out on the real object no matter how I try. Here's three photos for you that demonstrate.

First of all, I don't know what the first two are. The frost fascinated me, and it's only when I developed them that I realized they were hairy. If you look really really closely in good light you can just see the hairs. But if you just look, the leaf looks a bit fuzzy.

A buddy of mine likes to photograph snowflakes. This is as close as I've come, catching a bit of the structure of a grain of frost. If you look really carefully you can see some rainbow patterns on the hairs.

These are lamb's ears, and they look really fuzzy to our eyesight. But once you drill in you can see how many and how fine the hairs are.

I've never been much of a flower person, but since I've started taking some of the macro photos I have a whole new appreciation of how intricate and beautiful they are.

There are photos in the camera of Linda's outdoor decoration, but she's still puttering. It looks really good, but getting good photos has been a bit challenging. Tomorrow. Stay tuned.