Monday, June 08, 2009

My favorite rose? Rose Nylund.

Sometimes, a dude just wants to take pretty pictures of the flowers in his backyard.



This last picture taught me the limits of the kit lens that came with my Nikon D40 (18-55mm, for the photo geeks). I wanted to zoom in on the little drop of water that was about to fall, but I couldn't get any closer without losing focus. To take a picture like that, there are apparently two options:

1) Drop 300 bones on a macro lens
2) Drop $17.50 on a set of magnifying filters that screw onto your existing lens

Hello, filters! Mine should get here in a few days. I can't wait to take a picture up the dog's nose. It'll probably look like Zion National Park up there.

9 comments:

  1. I like Rose Tyler - companion to Doctor Who. Just thought I'd share.

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  2. Did she wear a Doctor Who scarf, too? She'd need one if she visited the other Rose in St. Olaf.

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  3. Not too bad Mike... the last is my favorite. I assume that all my recent photography of flowers at the botanical gardens and arboretum sparked this interest. I consider this flattering.

    See this link for my albums:
    http://picasaweb.google.com/phillybrightguy

    But for this link for my selected favorites:
    http://picasaweb.google.com/phillybrightguy/FavoritePhotos#

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  4. That's a nice camera. Isn't there a macro setting built in?

    Check out this group, flickr d40 owners, macros. Think it could get any more specific? Ha.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/nemo026/3602431135/in/pool-d40d40xd60macro/

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  5. I want to be a photo geek but can't even figure out the manual for my point-and-shoot camera.

    Beautiful photos!

    Were you saddened too by the recent passing of Bea Arthur? I'm not sure why a show about two generations of gray-haired women in a retirement community in Miami appealed to an adolescent farm girl in Iowa, but it did. Nothing like learning about the birds and the bees from Blanche Devereaux...

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  6. Forgot to mention my favorite Rose. Axel.

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  7. Jered Earl -- Very nice shots, man. I just took a stroll through your faves. I recognized some of 'em. Let's have a pretentious discussion about white balance and shutter speed soon. I don't know enough to be pretentious, but I can practice.

    Buster -- Very cool group. Thanks for the link, enjoyed checking those out. Yeah, the camera has a macro setting, but you can't get REALLY close with the regular lens. I want to get all up in that flower's grill.

    pjmom -- I can't either figure out the point-and-shoot either. The D40 does pretty much everything automatically, but it also lets you F everything up if you'd prefer. And yeah, dude, actually I was a little sad about Bea Arthur. My mom and I used to watch the crap out of some Golden Girls. Did you remember when that show aired? Saturday nights. I had forgotten about that until I read an article after she died. They used to run real TV shows on Saturday nights. That's weird. And I guess it says something about my adoloscent social life that I've seen every episode four times.

    Buster -- Ha, nice. My favorite war? Of the Roses.

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  8. And Kathleen Turner when she was Kathleen Turner. Good call.

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  9. Mike, you're going to need to teach me how to use my camera now that you've figured it all out!

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