Macro Photography: Take Two

I just recently looked at my camera's memory card and discovered some photos that I took last Thursday when the weather was decent. Very opposite from today - it's icy out and extremely cold today! I braved the elements Wednesday and ventured outside for some ice-filled photos, which I'll hopefully share next week sometime.

I'm kinda/sorta getting the hang of this macro lens (finally), but it's a work in progress to say the least. It has a very short focal range and a 1:1 ratio, so you have to get PAINFULLY close to your subject for that macro effect. It's fine, I mean, I didn't expect anything less. Hopefully my next macro will be the 105mm that I've been longing for. Although, my next lens purchase will hopefully be that wide angle Tokina. Fingers crossed!

Anyways, here are a handful of photos from last week. I'm a tad more comfortable with this lens now, which will hopefully show in my photos. I'll really be able to get my hands dirty when spring rolls around and there are 100s of little flowers all around.

This is literally an old hanging flower basket. It looks like hay up close, but from afar it doesn't, obviously. I love how close the 40mm Nikon gets.

A macro stick.

This mossy greenery grows on our concrete sidewalk and I usually always get pictures of it in the spring, but I've never been able to get macro shots of it.

More macro moss.

As you can see, the 40mm Nikon does wonder for extreme closeups.

I can legit take dozens of photos of moss.

Some type of pretty little clover-like weed.

Super awesome macro on this weed. It almost reminds me of a cactus.

Dead leaves on a dirty ground.

Not super close, but I liked how it turned out.

More dried up weeds.

These weeds usually have little green or purple berries. Now they're just dried up looking bells.

There's a lot of them.

I don't know what type of little puff this is, but they're some type of super cute dried up weed.

I had a lot of fun playing around with the macro here.

The Nikon 40mm takes some amazing close shots.

I'm done with the puff.

More dried weeds.

Macro of the furry dried weed.

A fallen feather. The macro on this feather was decent, but not the best.

As you can see, the 40mm Nikon takes amazing pet portraits as well. Take this handsome Boxador, Max, for example.

Pretty amazing macro shot of a dogs eye. One thing I love about the 40mm Nikon.


Introduction to Macro Photography (Nikon Micro-Nikkor 40mm F/2.8)

 If you know anything about me, you know how much I love photography. So receiving a lens for Christmas really is best case scenario for me. I was lucky enough to receive a macro (or micro) lens for Christmas this year and it's something completely out of my comfort zone. Nikon's 40mm 2.8 aperture fluctuates according the the lighting, which is something completely new to me. It's not as easy to get used to as my older lenses, so my beginning photos are still a little "meh".

The 2.8 is also new to me. All of my primes have a 1.8 aperture, so I'm used to adjusting the shutter and ISO accordingly, but this 2.8, albeit small difference, effects the lighting greatly. So none of my comfort setting work on this lens.

With that being said, I am obsessed with it! I remember back to my point and shoot days when you could get macro quality images without even trying. I've always loved macro photography, but when I save up enough money to make a new lens purchase, it's always for a less expensive prime.

So here are some of my first macro shots with my new lens. Some of these are from Christmas Eve all the way to the first week of January. They're nothing special, but I hope you enjoy!


Up close and personal with this Christmas ornament snowflake.

Cute lil snowman.

Super macro snowman.

Homemade lantern Christmas ornament.

Macro Christmas ribbon.

Tiny little Christmas presents.

This is the perfect macro Christmas present. I absolutely love the macro capabilities of the Nikon 40mm 2.8 Nikkor lens.

The following photos are a series of Christmas village people. Proceed with caution:

Macro shot of a singing lady... I think.

I'm guessing this is the local meth head.

The always surprised boy.

Christmas village fishing pals. The one on the left looks kinda like Ursula.

This Christmas village dad looks like he may cannibalize his daughter later.

This Christmas village guy looks like one of the 4 horseman.

Man on a mission. This Christmas village bread boy looks far too intense.

By far one of the best Christmas village ladies.

This looks like that salty old man that lives in the hills and only comes to town once a month for flour and evaporated milk.

Love the tiny little Christmas village animals.

Arthur Weasley's long lost brother that just got out of the drunk tank. I guess Christmas village people can be alcoholics too?

This is the Nazi Christmas village guy. His broom broke off, so it looks like he's doing the horrendous "white power" sign with his hands. I hate him.

Slightly decent, slightly deformed Christmas village couple singing in front of a church.

And lastly, Christmas village reindeer that look like llamas.

More of those wire Christmas trees from Dollar General.

Not the best macro shot, but it's okay.

See how close I got to this Christmas light bulb?

This was our Missouri snow storm in early January.

As you can tell we were snowed in for days.

Christmas Recap: 2020 Edition (huge photo dump)

 Since a lot more of us travel for work anymore, we had to have Christmas a couple days early last year. Which was okay, but it made it seem off. I mean, there are other, more pressing reasons that Christmas was off last year, but I'm not going to get into that. 

We rushed home the Monday before Christmas - which was our Christmas Eve - and started baking like crazy. We made 4 different types of cookies, plus prepped Christmas dinner for the following day. We also open gifts on Christmas Eve, so we had that to do later in the day. All in all it was fairly uneventful and chilly. No snow, of course, but at least it wasn't in the 60s like Christmas of 2019.

So here are a few dozen photos from November and December of random decorations and, of course, the tree. Here's a belated Merry Christmas to you all!

Our massive Christmas village - this was a first for me!

The Christmas village street lights were a pain to line up.

The Christmas village skating rink is a blur.




Our smaller, bare Christmas tree.

Christmas lights over one side of the cabinet.

Christmas lights over the other side of the cabinet.

These adorable little wire Christmas trees come in a 2 pack from Dollar Tree. We've had them for a few years now and I think they're adorable.

Gotta have our Hope ornament.

And our Peace ornament.

And our Faith ornament. I also love the Christmas lights in the background. Amazing bokeh with this lens.

Did I mention that we now have a fence around the house? Well we do and we decked it out with Christmas lights this year.


I love these super bright LED Christmas lights.


I had a lot of fun playing around with the bokeh/Christmas light combo with my 35mm Nikon lens. 


Our super decked out kitchen window. Talk about Christmas spirit.

I was obsessed with the Christmas lights at night.

And playing around with Christmas light bokeh is a blast.


Beautiful red and green Christmas ornament.

Snow man ornament.

Leaf ornament.

Cardinal ornament.

The following photos are random Christmas decorations from around the house:









Now some Christmas portraits of our dog, Max:

He's very camera shy.


He has the most adorable Boxador face.

He's a boxer and lab mix, obviously.

Our gorgeous multi-colored Christmas tree.

Definitely one of my fave trees.

Turtle pecan Christmas cookies.

Reece's Pieces peanut butter cookies.

More turtle pecan cookies.

Gotta have some Christmas sugar cookies.

The following are some homemade Christmas decorations:






Our Christmas lighted archway into the kitchen.

The lighted garland around the door to the garage is my favorite.

A homemade Christmas wreath.

And to round up my Christmas photos of 2020, a landscape photo of our Christmas tree.