Lensbaby Macro Photos

Last Christmas Brandon gave me a Lensbaby Muse. I had been thinking about it for about year but had not asked him for it before then because I had heard mixed reviews. Up until now I have only used it a few times. Its not exactly intuitive because it doesn't meter on my camera, so its a big guessing game. I'm sure there are a few pros out there that just know what settings it needs to be on by the light, but for me, I really like using my meter. Since the weather has been so bad until now, it just seems like the light hasn't really been right on the occasions I have attempted to use it.

Fast forward to this past weekend, I had been looking into macro lenses so I could take pictures of flowers. It was depressing, those things are in the 1k range. I can't justify spending that kind of money on a lens that I'll use infrequently. Suddenly a light came on in my head...Brandon got me a Lensbaby with a macro kit! Tada! It works amazingly. I still have a lot of practice to do on it, but it was a lot of fun to play around with the settings. The Lensbaby is not an auto-focusing lens. You have to push and pull it around to get it into focus. It has different aperture rings that you can put in and it makes the "sweet spot" larger or smaller. I like using f8 still since the f2 is a little harder to control.

I went out and took pictures like a mad woman. A few of my favorites:

I am unsure what this white flower is. I tried to keep the tags next to all of my flowers so I would remember what they were, but the monsoon this past weekend took care of that. Honestly, this flower is teeny tiny, I was surprised that it actually looked like it had some size to it.




This is a picture of the very top of one of my allium blooms. I just barely missed a huge bumblebee on top, but of course the wicked wind out here started up and the bee took off.



This is the marigold sitting in my kitchen waiting to get planted in my big pot that is waiting in the garage. I have a few more plants to find to finish the pot or else I would have him planted already.



This little guy is also sitting in my kitchen waiting to be planted. Bless his heart, I need to do it soon, I would hate to kill him like my snap dragons. I think I kept them indoors too long.



Lastly, this is a picture of one of the leaves on my pumpkin seedling. He is getting extremely big. He has started growing out of the box I've got him in and down the side of the table. I keep thinking that its time to be planted, but then the skies open up and 50 inches of rain pour down and I thank my lucky stars I didn't plant him yet...his stem would probably break right in half.



I am extremely excited about this new-found use of my lens. The possibilities are opening up...although I am thinking I've got to figure out how to use my flash with this thing so that I can use it more frequently. Does anyone else out there have a Lensbaby and have been able to command their flash wirelessly while using it?