An Old Dog's New Tricks

Before anything else, Prayers for Norway! My heart goes out to our old and new friends there....

Ironically, this is the image I had queued for my Shutterchance blog today before last Friday's tragic attacks occurred. I ponder such things in my heart. This is the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway.
God have mercy on us all!

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It's been like an albatross around my neck for over a year now, after purchasing my 100mm macro lens in Novemeber of 2009, just before moving across the Big Pond.

So, at the beginning of this year, 2011, I made the commitment: learn to use it "or else" by the end of this year!

Now that half the year is over, I'm finally starting the learning curve on all the settings:

• Full vs. .5m vs. .3-.5m?
• Auto Focus vs. Manual Focus?
• Aperture Priority vs. what?
• High vs. low aperture?
• Single vs. multi-focus points?
• Tripod vs. hand-held?
  
• Etc., etc.

I started off a week ago and every day learned something new. Oh, and Victoria over at A Photography Addict's Showcase gave me inspiration and tips. THANK YOU, Victoria.

This was my first attempt, here inside our apartment.
NO WIND! Very important.
I started out with a tripod and a single-point focus on that one left 'eye'.
I was feeling cross-eyed after multiple attempts.
As Victoria said, I need to know what effect I want!

One sunny day on my walk, I decided to try hand-held shots outside, in spite of our almost constant wind. I was not gonna let this thing control me. I wanted to control IT!

I was excited to think I had found a bumble bee.
WRONG! Victoria told me it's a hoverfly...another learning curve.


At least this one didn't fly away!

Then on Saturday morning Astrid and I were invited for koffie over at Thelma and Siem's. Thelma is an Indonesian woman living here in The Netherlands since 1960. Dutch Siem met her in 1964, they fell in love and have been married now for 46 years! Astrid and Thelma used to play tennis together and have remained in contact.

Lucky for me, they have a HUGE garden with every kind of flower and bush imaginable. Talk about a macro-lens paradise. EXCEPT FOR THE WIND. I LOVE the wind here in this country but when it come to outdoor macro shots, it's my enemy. Still, after 304 images, I was able to narrow them down to 30 okay/decent shots...for my learning curve, that is. Here are some of them:

Even after the link from Victoria about hoverflies vs. bees, I still don't know if this was a bee.
It sure seemed different from all the hoverflies I saw, but...who knows!


But these for sure are hoverflies. Hundreds of them everywhere.


And one dragonfly to end the day.
[click on any image to enlarge]


Hanging on for dear life midst all the wind!


I was such a happy camper in Thelma and Siem's garden!
And the good news is that we will go back again and again, just as we've done before.

In the meantime, I'll keep practicing to figure out what it is I want with macro shots. That may be as much of the learning curve as anything else?!

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Now that the Tour de France is done and over with for another year, HURRAH to Cadel Evans from Australia for pulling the whole thing off. HURRAH also to the Schleck brothers from Luxemburg who came in 2nd and 3rd. It was a 'first' for Australia and a 'first' for two brothers! Pretty exciting stuff...and yes, true to form, I cried like a baby at the end. (sigh)