Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: raynox dcr-250

2 more pictures in notes above! Please visit the other pictures and roll your mouse over the images to see what the full size flower looks like :) I had more fun with the Raynox DCR-250 Super Macro conversion lens today! :) This time I wandered over to our patch of Bull Thistle, which is almost done blooming. There are a few more flowers in full bloom though, so I took the opportunity to practice taking pictures. I got a lot of images, but the slight breeze was enough to ruin many of my attempts. This one turned out well I think, talk about abstract! Yesterday I was very surprised to find that the tips of the Star Thistle flower bits have beautiful details, so I thought I might find the same on the Bull Thistle flowers. YES!! So amazing what you can see at this magnification, isn't it?! I am constantly amazed at the wonders to see if only we can look closer! :) Charles Langbridge Morgan (22 January 1894 – 6 February 1958) was an English-born playwright and novelist of English and Welsh parentage. The main themes of his work were, as he himself put it, "Art, Love, and Death",[1] and the relation between them. Themes of individual novels range from the paradoxes of freedom (The Voyage, The River Line), through passionate love seen from within (Portrait in a Mirror) and without (A Breeze of Morning), to the conflict of good and evil (The Judge's Story) and the enchanted boundary of death (Sparkenbroke). Wikipedia: Charles Langbridge Morgan Explored on August 19, 2013. Highest placement, page 5.

1 clickable picture in a note above: if you'd like to see more pictures of this flower, click on the picture and roll your mouse over the next image! :) Here you can really see why this flower is called "Irish Eyes"! And of course, just look at the "lashes"! :D Beautiful "hairy" stamens, so delicate and tiny. Amazing to see these details!

2 more pictures above in notes! :D Among a sea of others, this one thistle tip is on a stage all alone!

4 more pictures in notes above! Please visit the stamen pictures and roll your mouse over the image to see what the full size flower looks like :) Yesterday's pictures of a tiny baby spider had me thinking that it's time to add another layer of challenge to my photography, in the form of the Raynox DCR-250 Super Macro conversion lens . Even though we've had this lens for a couple of years, I wanted to have ample time to practice with my 100mm lens first. Macro lenses have a steep learning curve and can be very frustrating to use until you understand how to use them properly. In fact, about 100,000 pictures down the road, I *STILL* and *WILL ALWAYS* take plenty of garbage pictures. It's part of the price tag of working in macro. :) I'm really glad I waited to use this conversion lens. Instead of becoming instantly annoyed, I was immediately comfortable using it, since I've had so much practice learning to judge distance and dof with my 100mm. The closer you get to a subject with a macro lens, the more razor thin the focus slice is, and the Raynox is unforgiving with the hair-thin dof. However, since I have used my 100mm at close range so much, I was prepared and pleasantly surprised that I already knew what to do with the Raynox, what types of shots and angles to try for the best possible outcome. With such a fine slice of focus, you want to try for a flat or side shot, and don't even bother with really small apertures like f/2.8. So I upped mine to f/6.3, compensated for the loss of light from the conversion lens by upping my ISO to 320, and looked for subjects that were very well lit for the best probability of a crisp picture. And, just to toss in a bit more complexity, all of these pictures today were taken with manual focus because the subject area is too small to get accurate auto focus. When I noticed this "flying green grain of rice" land on a Star Thistle blossom, I saw a great opportunity to practice! I was able to take about 6-8 pictures, some of which were totally blurry, a couple that were just a bit off, one that wasn't half bad, and this one, which I am delighted by!! The lighting could be better but I am not complaining! My first practice session with this conversion lens and I got THIS picture!!! There are prisms visible in the compound eye and check out that amazing pebbly texture on the back! And that jewel-like emerald green! This tiny Sweat Bee is only about the size of a grain of rice!!! AMAZING!!!! I'm totally delighted. If I use a tripod or even a monopod, I'll have even better luck with clarity. Very promising! Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895/1896 – February 17, 1986) was an Indian speaker and writer on philosophical and spiritual subjects. In his early life he was groomed to be the new World Teacher but later rejected this mantle and disbanded the organisation behind it. His subject matter included psychological revolution, the nature of mind, meditation, inquiry, human relationships, and bringing about radical change in society. He constantly stressed the need for a revolution in the psyche of every human being and emphasized that such revolution cannot be brought about by any external entity, be it religious, political, or social. Wikipedia: Jiddu Krishnamurti Explored on August 18, 2013. Highest placement, page 3.

2 pictures and 1 note above! Looking around for subjects to practice on, I noticed that there were still some beautiful Chicory blossoms in bloom and I instantly thought, "STAMENS!!!!!" You can see that the dof is very thin and in truth, needs to be more in the f/11 range to include that whole stamen. Still, I am delighted at the clarity and detail here!

2 pictures and 1 note above! When I took both Chicory pictures, there was a slight breeze and I was holding the camera and used manual focus. All of these factors have impacted the clarity of this picture, but still, it's not bad. It is amazing working with such a razor-thin dof. I would move my camera slightly closer and then backwards, taking a picture as soon as I felt the focus was right. VERY HARD to keep anything in focus for more than a split second!

1 note above (top right) This collage shows "near misses" of some ants that I captured running up and down a Chicory stem. They were getting ready to cut down the flower stamens and then haul them away to thier ant hill. They were running around so fast that I didn't think I'd have a single picture that would work. As it was you can see that my depth of field is too shallow on all of these pictures. I only got a fine sliver of each ant, not good enough. In order to compensate for their fast movement, I made sure to take pictures in the bright light and with a higher ISO. It worked quite well, except that I should have upped my aperture to include more of the ant in focus.

1 note link above! A Star Thistle flower measures about 3/4" in diameter, and each stamen is very small. A nice subject to try getting some close-ups on! I was pleased to see I got good focus on this one!