photo.mish.net

Ahh, macro photography. I do not own a macro lens, which makes close-up photography that much harder. I read online that you can get a reversing ring that will mount a lens backwards onto the camera, turning it into a macro lens. I guess this makes sense when I think about it - normally the lens takes light from a wide angle and focuses it down into a small square. By putting it backwards it does the opposite, taking light from a small area and spreading it out to a wide angle - thus, macro photography.

Alas, I do not own a reversing ring, but that hasn't stopped me from holding my 50mm in the air in front of the camera without attaching it and just firing away. i have to manually stop down the lens to f/8 or so and then set the focus to infinity or something before holding it up, and then I have no control of focus other than moving myself and the camera closer or farther away from the subject.

It was with this technique, in the light of a poorly lit dorm room that I approached this subject, a puzzle that Microsoft had given out at one of its recruiting events. I taking this I had to get in position and hold the shutter down while my D70 took a whole bunch of shots, hoping that I would have held still in one of them to get a decent shot. I'm pretty happy with how the final shot came out. I like the colors a lot, I like the shallow depth of field, how basically only half of one block is in focus (and barely so), and I like the lines and the perspective. Now to go pick up a reversing ring to make stuff like this easier =)