I actually love macro photography. It mostly gets used on flowers. I understand this. Flowers are beautiful. They have great colour. Their shapes are fascinating and a lovely blend of geometry and biology. Somewhere deep in our beings we are either biologically hardwired or spiritually inspired to appreciate them- probably both. I fall victim to the temptation myself sometimes.
There’s way cooler stuff out there to get up close and personal with though. Like creepy insects. My favourite macro lens is actually my Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 USM Macro- an absolutely fantastic piece of glassware which unfortunately, due to its EF-S demarcation, only works with the XXXD range of EOS cameras, and not my EOS 5D. As a result, I don’t have an equitable macro lens for my full-frame camera (now my main workhorse), and so these shots are taken with the macro function on the EF 50mm f/1.8- which works well for depth-of-field effect at the open end, but which has a slow, softer focus and not a fraction of the macro-esque magnificence of the aforementioned 60mm. Hence fewer of this sort of image, and the not-s0-macro closeup goodness that the 60mm has offered on other occasions.
For example, these first three photos (respectively: a Praying Mantis with an M&M, a Dead Ant, and the Zip on my Cargo Pants taken in an airport waiting lounge in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, because, why not?) are all taken with the 60mm. They’re golden oldies in my photo collection now, but I’m very fond of them all the same.
The rest, below, were taken more recently. I’d like to point out that the Florida panhandle has some MASSIVE insects, and I missed some great opportunities, for example a psychadelic cricket darn-well near the length of my forearm, and the infamous ‘cow-killer’ ant- actually a very aggressive species of flightless wasp. However, I did love the colour scheme on this spider we found outside the team house- which I’m fairly sure, if the rest of nature is to be trusted, means that it is toxic enough to kill you just by smelling it.
This second spider, on the same property, I’ve included for sheer creep-out value. I didn’t need a macro lens to capture its grotesquery.
On the more attractive end of the spectrum, this butterfly was gracious enough to SITTHEHELLSTILL for just long enough for me to get this grab- and make me crave for a 200mm telephoto lens so that I could catch these beauties and not keep disturbing them.
This is not macro but macaroon- and isn’t remarkably small, either. It is, however, a nice use of depth-of-field and I didn’t have another post to stick it in. I hope it inspires you to new and greater desserts.
Peace out.
