More Macro Photos

Well, what can I say... I have the shutter bug (har, har). I can't seem to get enough of taking pictures. It's exciting to have a new camera that does so much more than my old Samsung 3 mp point and shoot. I was doing most of my picture taking with that camera, and although it took fantastic pictures, it had its limitations. The main one was its incredible ability to suck the power out of four AA batteries in less than an hour. I ended up giving the camera to a friend's niece. I hope she can enjoy it despite the battery sucking.

This morning I went to Barnes and Nobel and paid full price for two Tom Ang photography books. I had gone to the library yesterday and found several I thought were good, and it turned out the B&N had the two of his I wanted. The first one "Fundamentals of Photography" and the second was "Digital Photography Master Class". I am hoping to use my Nikon P100 to get much better at photography then move onto a SLR camera. I don't see myself being a "pro" or anything, but it would be nice to have something published one day. I can imagine writing a non-fiction book and using my own photos for it.

 I took this one with my mirror and my new Targus tripod I bought this morning at Target. It was a great deal--$36 for a 66 in quick release tripod. It works great. For this picture I used the mirror to set it up and then used the timer. I think it's pretty good, except maybe a little over exposed.

Here is a tic I found on my dog and decided to shoot. He was crawling pretty fast. I noticed my zoom did not want to focus on him more when I was farther back, so I just got closer and close and was able to get this picture. Something I learned about my zoom--I can use the zoom feature more if I get closer.

This little "Laughing Buddha" is a porcelain figurine I got at the "Jade Buddha" tour when it came to Escondido. It's just a little figure about 2" high. I got down at eye level for it and then cropped the picture slightly to fill the frame better, and finally I changed the contrast with Windows Photo Gallery. I am trying not to change the photos too much and working towards taking good pictures AS THEY ARE. I think that is much more interesting and harder than fooling around with the computer.

 

And here is another tiny animal. This Cellar Spider lives in my bathroom under the sink. I couldn't find any of his friends, so I had to get him by turning the camera sideways and zooming in really close. I really like this pictures, but the background seems to detract somewhat.




And finally, here are two pictures I took with the Tripod to try it out. Like I said, it works amazingly!