Pond Scum
 

It was a beautiful sunny day today so I trecked down to a local pond and got some pretty decent shots of the flora and fauna with the macro lens. I don't know the names of any of the plants, just thought the colors and shapes were interesting. I do believe that the purple flowery thing is part of a water lily though.

Plant Life
 

Some more flora.

Fungi and Mushroom
 

Some strange looking fungus that looks kind of like coral and a slug munching on a mushroom.

Insects
 

Some kind of fly on a mushroom and great big dragonfly sunning himself on a rock that was out in the water.

Frog
 

After slogging around the pond for a hour or so I still hadn't seen one frog worthy of a close up. Finally, as I was about to leave this little guy jumped in the water in front of me. He turned out to be very accommodating and let me get as close I pleased and even moved around some so I could get shots from all angles.

Damn 404, looks like you're taking over the job of official photographer for the Cellar. Excellent, simply excellent!

I'll still be doing some 2nd unit work, though...

Those black berries on purple stems are pokeberries.

Those pictures are absolutely stunning. If I hadn't already spent all my $$ on a bike, I'd be out shopping for whatever photography setup you've got. Bring on any more you take, they are appreciated!!

Yeah, phenomenal shots. Makes me really want to get into photography ... which = spending more money on the 50,000 other things I *pretend* to do.

simply beautiful! every shot is gorgeous! You make the frog look so--noble!

WOW! I can see you in the reflection of the frog's eye!!!!! SO COOL!!!! :biggrin:

Stunning, as usual. :thumbsup:

very nice indeed! What macro lens are you using? I've got my beady little eye on a Canon 100mm macro.

Sounds like you know a little about Poke salad? :eek: BB

Absolutely stunning! What beautiful images. I can't even pick a favorite!

Wow. 404 does it again! You have real talent

Yep, that's me in the frog's eye! You can also see the pond and trees to my right and the large rounded black thing right in front of me is the camera lens.

Thanks again for the accolades everyone, glad you liked the pictures. Photography has always been my favorite hobby but only within the past few years have I dabbled with digital cameras. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, posting my results and getting favorable comments like these really helps!

Jag, the camera is an Olympus C-8080 and it has a 28mm - 140mm lens with built in macro capability. I haven't looked into different lens options yet as I'm still test driving this camera!

404, in the frog eye pic you don't look all that close to the subject. Is this some kind of long range macro shot?

From the pokeberry link; That's the purple and white crap on the car.

Nice job 404. :thumbsup: I have a C4000 with built in macro but I just can't seem to get it to work like the Nikon SLR with a 105mm Micro Nikkor. Guess I gotta move up scale but I wanted to wait for a digital Nikon that would use my Nikkor lenses. Uh, make that a Nikon I can afford. :haha:

NBN,
The camera itself is about 4 to 6 inches from the frog in these pictures. It has a tiltable LCD monitor on the back of the camera so I didn't have my face right up to the viewfinder to see what your focusing on. Most of the higher end digitals have this feature, comes in real handy for macro work and situations where looking through the viewfinder isn't practical.

Aye, and still produces clearly awesome results. I've seen 'handheld' macro rigs, 180mm lens, dual lens mounted or ring flash, bigass pro SLR, how anyone is meant to hold stable to shoot that still without being elligable for the olympic weightlifting team is beyond me. Hell a 1DMII and a 70-200 for a few hours is enough to give me a workout. This may just be a reflection on me. I didn't see photography as an activity that required weights training before...

Or yoga so you can twist your body into the shape necessary to be stable anyplace. A human tripod if needed. :alien:

So true Jag and Bruce, I never said every shot came out crystal clear either, you're only seeing the ones that did come out good. I've deleted tons of fuzzy shots due to camera shake and/or too slow of a shutter speed in low light.

Most of the these low angle shots I had to rest the camera right on the ground or against something solid to avoid the shakes. Gotta find a shorter tripod!

You could try a monopod, with the weight off it's much easier to hold still for another stop or two.