Going Macro
To take professional quality photos, it helps to have professional quality gear, but you can still do a lot with a little these days.
I have a somewhat dated Canon Digital Rebel that I purchased from a good friend of mine at work (thanks for the hookup, Karthik!).
The CMOS sensor in the chip is good enough for the hobbyist or for anything web-related, but not something you’d want to use for wedding photography unless you just really know how to squeeze the most out of the camera. Regardless, after getting the camera I started purchasing lots of lens adapters (or conversion lenses), which are basically lenses that screw into your existing lenses, changing them from normal kit-lenses to panoramic, super fish eye, or in this case, macro lenses.
The macro used here is an off brand conversion lens that does both fisheye (spherical, exaggerated images that pinch on the left and right, sometimes inside of a black halo called a vignette) and macro, which in this case refers to taking large photos of little things. It’s basically a two-piece lens that you can easily purchase for about $30. It’s and easy way to lose a few hours:
For an idea of what these photos represent in terms of size, the object above is a nozzle that windshield fluid squirts out of.
Lead air rifle pellets in a tin, all exposed to too much weather.
Purple people eaters. Check out the water droplets inside the flower facing our direction.
Furry flying seedlings.
A very tiny worm stretching its way out of view.
Even weeds look cool up close.