Last year, I purchased a macro lens – the Canon 100mm 2.8L. I was so wanting to shoot the things that our normal human eyes don’t see. Or pay attention to the details. So, when we got snow a few days ago, I was determined to nail this whole shooting snowflakes with a macro. It was a little tough at first, as shooting with macros can be a little tricky compared to shooting with a portrait lens, especially when you’re used to shooting wide open or close to wide open with the portrait lens.
This morning, when it started snowing again, I went outside in my garage and caught a few flakes on my daughter’s black sweater. I started shooting and found it difficult with the settings (since I had to crank my ISO way up there to accomodate my closed down aperture setting). Then, about a half hour later, I noticed that there were bigger flakes falling in the back yard, and since there is more light available in the back yard, I decided to try shooting there. I brought out an all black t-shirt and caught several snowflakes on it. Some of them were big, until I looked at them through my macro and saw that they were actually several snowflakes bunched together! Well, the dork in me was in awe of this nature lesson today, as well as my children, and I couldn’t wait to upload them to see how they looked blown up on my Mac. We couldn’t believe that the snowflakes were as small as a tip of a pencil and the bunch of flakes as big as a pencil eraser! Here are a few that I captured:
And here’s a before-and-after of the last loaded image (above). This is my pinky finger and nail just to show you how small the group of snowflakes really is. Quite amazing, huh?
