Well!  The snow came and then finally melted, allowing spring to finally go about its business.  I dusted off my 100 mm macro and got down low to the ground, looking for all things small.  Down in the undergrowth all kinds of life forms are busy emerging, as the days get longer and warmer.  Small little flowers no bigger than a nail head.  Ants, spiders and ladybirds! Butter flies, bumble bees and hover flies!  In their own way they are all getting ready for summer.  And all make great macro subjects.

Having stalked around the garden with the 100 mm macro, I felt a need to get even closer to my subjects.  So, I started adding extension tubes to my lens.  Not content with the standard extension kit I borrowed a second and added this.  In the end the extension matched the length of my macro lens.  This all took me well past life size reproduction.  The only way to get any half way decent images with this insane amount of extension is to use flash.  (as I was hand holding the rig to keep up with the ever animate subjects)

Other than spending hours crouched low, crawling on my hands and knees, the only other pain is depth of field.  Or rather lack of it!  At this magnification the true focus point is so narrow that its impossible to get the entire eye of a hover fly in perfect focus.  Either way I am pretty happy with the results.

Enjoy the images!

PS The Tadpoles have developed tiny hind legs!!!!  Hopefully I’ll have some images to post soon