Macro Monday 37 flowers ants

I felt the urge to put on the macro lens today and see what I could come up with. It's quite different than shooting with a normal lens for two reasons. One is that the area in the finished photo is extremely small, on the order of a few mm each direction, meaning you have to look really closely. Two is that the depth of field is extremely narrow, meaning that anything much closer or further away from the lens than what you actually want to shoot is going to be out of focus. Sometimes that's artistic, sometimes it's just a mess.

Plus, this lens doesn't focus. The magnification drives the focus, so the subject has to be a specific, and I do mean specific, distance from the lens, meaning you move back and forth to find focus. Or anchor your camera and change magnification.

Tulip at 2x

Tulip and ant at 3x

Peony and ant 3x

Several tulip shots at 3x. I was loving the light, and trying to capture interesting curves and textures rather than a specific thing. Plus that orange!

 And the best ant butt for my buddy Susi! Funny how so many butt shots happen when shooting small creatures. It's like they're camera shy or something.