3-29-10

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Let’s get to it! Macro Monday is all about getting close and personal! I would like to zoom in and tell you more about myself and love of macro photography. As a photography student at The College of DuPage I had explored many areas of photography. I had found myself leaning toward nature more and more with each semester. The summer prior to my final year attending The College of DuPage I had purchased a macro lens, but not just any lens.  Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G macro, this was my first major investment in glass and I love this lens without end. If there is a bit of room to work with it makes one of the best portrait lenses you can use. Having an f-stop ranging from f2.8 all the way down to f57 there is a lot of potential to be creative. An f-stop of 57 seems out of control; however the 3 things that affect depth of field are focal length, subject to camera distance, and the f-stop. With this 105mm Macro having a 1:1 aspect ratio you need to close down your aperture to near f22 just to have even a small range of focus. If you are at a 1:1 ratio; f2.8 or f3.5 would just come out to be a sliver of a focal plane. The image of the dragonfly is at f8 and as you can see, the eye is sharp while the rest of the image is falling out of focus rapidly as you move away from the focus point (the eye). My love of photography, and particularly nature, became heightened by the owning of a macro lend. This lens let me really try to discover the simple and beautiful features of nature. Tune in next week for a new view on close-up photography!