Close Up And Crisp

When you’re having a lazy Saturday, you turn to a) things close to hand and b) the sunniest part of the room to get your photo kicks. With Marie giggling at Facebook in the background, and with Jesse the cat burrowed sleepilyinto the furry lining of Marie’s coat on the sofa, I spent a peaceful ten minutes taking close-up pictures by the window:

Nikon D300, Tamron 90mm f 2.8 prime lens at 90mm, 1/160 sec at f 22, ISO 500, hand held no flash. Pick the bones out of that. Lovely and crisp from the specialist Tamron macro lens. ISO pushed up and shot with a tiny aperture to get sharpness front-to-back. I shot other versions with the SB-800 flash, but I like the deep shadows of this one, which was the first one I took. The models, little hand-carved figures, were a wedding present and they live on our mantelpiece.

I kept it narrowed down to f 22, and got even closer on the next one:

Nikon D300, Tamron 90mm f 2.8 prime lens at 90mm, 1/80 sec at f 22, ISO 500, hand held no flash. There’s something so satisfying seeing small objects up molecule-close. It helps if you’re also a bit of an anorak… Nice clean backgrounds on both these pictures, important when you’re in macro mode.