It's a bug's life

Angel wings

While organizing old photos, I found several CDs filled with photos of my time crawling through flowers, looking for bee friends and any other bugs that might be willing to say hello and pose for me while I was still finding my first steps into photography. And looking at these photos I realized how much I missed exploring this beautiful tiny world, so maybe it was time to look into how to get myself back to this little bug's life world.

What do you have for me YouTube...

Smile

I am already not tech savvy and for sure not up to speed with the latest goings ons in what's new, but the people on YouTube are so that's where you will find me when I am looking for a very quick crash course, in this case, what's new in the world of macro photography. And again, YouTube did not disappoint, from the video posts to the comments to the posts. I thought I was just looking at what macro lens to potentially buy, to now see there are macro filters, the macro tubes I had heard of but never quite figured out what they did and yes, all the different kinds of lenses to choose from. Way too many options and way too many different opinions on those options and one confused me.

Back to old roots

Friend or foe

Here's what I ultimately walked away from YouTube with, and clearly this just being what I walked away with, which may or may not be useful to you. But my take on it all was that if you have the finances and are already enjoying taking photos of our tiny little bug friends, then I would have chosen to get myself a macro lens specifically made for this.

Happy stroll

Why I didn't end up with a macro lens for me is because as much as I enjoy seeing these old photos and hope to one day soon have the time to get myself back to the macro world, right now the time I have is spent with my hummingbird, cat and squirrel friends and if anything, I would love to be able to get even a bit closer to them. So then how about a telephoto / macro lens and get the best of both worlds! I really did like that idea. The reason I however ended up not going with that is because I am already very lucky and own some amazing lenses, that separately could mostly do what the telephoto / macro lenses I saw, could do, give or take a few in distance, without the luxury of having it all in one lens. But the lenses I already have, separately cost me more than just the one telephoto/macro lens. I by no means am saying that more money always means it's better. But there's a reason I have these lenses living on my cameras nearly 24-7, because that's how much I love them. So cheaper in this case to me really did seem like it might not be the best idea for me. And the one lens that would make it very interesting for me because it could reach so much further than what I already owned, that one meant me winning the lottery first. So, while I waited for that lottery win, I looked at the filter options.

The filters seem like the perfect in between in just enjoying exploring the macro world, but with a step up from just a cheap phone filter. The reasons I hesitated though was reading user comments on the filters. The screw on filter means really deciding on the one lens you are going to use that filter with, or investing in multiples for every lens, which can start getting costly. Also, the whole idea of a screw on filter. seemed inconvenient because I know I would just decide to either keep taking photos of the hummingbirds and leave the filter off completely or vice versa. Then there's the clip-on filter that would fix most of that problem in being able to clip onto several sizes of lenses and just a lot faster to take on and off. But as someone pointed out, also means easier access to dust getting in between the filter and the lens and dust spot removal is never one of my favorite things to spend my time on. So, after all this YouTube ing, I was ready to just let this whole macro world go for another day and enjoy that I had learnt a lot more about all the cool new options out there. And then I remembered, I still own the camera that took these macro photos though...

In with the old

Hello

Many of the bee photos I was enjoying re finding, were taken with my first ever Fujifilm camera. Who knew then, that, that would end up being my favorite camera so many years later. This particular Fujifilm however was a point and shoot that I had gotten myself as a "let's see if I can do this photo thing". My first camera to learn manual settings on. And yes, I still have it and it would be fun to take out again. But it is also huge and really old and, in the end, would be just that, fun to take out one time. After this Fujifilm camera, I got myself my first DSL, my Pentax, and this Pentax has one of those telephoto/ macro lenses. Except, it's a Pentax, which is a problem when trying to match to a Fujifilm body...Unless that is, I don't try to match it to my Fujifilm at all and just keep it attached to the Pentax and get to enjoy all worlds. And that is what I ended up doing. I treated myself to a slightly newer Pentax because my old one really was getting old and deserved to enjoy retirement. The newer Pentax cost me half of what the macro lens I was looking at would have cost me and I now get to enjoy getting that little bit closer to my bird friends and with a switch of a button, say hi to my little bug friends. And for everything else I keep enjoying my Fujifilm. So, this worked out great for me in being lucky to still have older gear. But I think in the end what all this showed me was a reminder that we all find our own way in all this. I can totally imagine how using filters can be great for people who enjoy using filters. I own a whole bag of them and once upon a time I had a lot of fun with them, and I might enjoy using them again in the future. And maybe one day I will feel it's time to treat myself to a true macro lens. Or maybe you enjoy being out with your phone and clip on filters and getting photos that I would never be able to get that are really cool! In the end, this is supposed to be about what makes us happy in this tiny little big world of ours.

New adventures

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