A friend of ours brought over a pot of tulips, which I placed on the dining room table. A couple of days later, it occurred to me that I should pull out my nemesis, the Canon 65mm lens, and prepare to do battle. I have a love/hate relationship with this lens. It requires patience to use (of which I have very little), and the ability to see past the obvious. Below is a progression of images I made over the course of the week, that illustrates how I worked past the obvious into new territory. At the end of this post, I have also included a few images I made with my iphone. I often get asked how to take unique images with a mobile phone, so I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose images made with a DSLR and an iPhone.
The Setup: I positioned the flowers near a west facing window and made these images early in the day. The Canon 65mm lens can provide up to 5x magnification and does not have a focusing ring. It is almost impossible to use if the subject is moving, and if the camera is not on a tripod. I find it helpful to use focusing rails which allow me to make minute adjustments sliding the camera back and forth until I can achieve focus.
My first surprise was realizing that tulips have small bumps on their petals. As I started working the subject from typical to more abstract, and as the flowers started to die, I was able to push outside my comfort zone. My second surprise was how much more I enjoyed photographing the withered blooms than the fresh blooms.
iPhone Images: The following images I made with my iPhone and the Moment macro lens. I am a huge fan of taking macros on my iPhone with or without an additional macro lens. In these images you can get a feel for how close you can get to a subject with your mobile phone. Note: none of these images have been processed.
pamphotography 