I was out with my macro this foggy morning

in anticipation of the contest that isn't happening, and I encountered my very cooperative resident frog. I love this guy's eye. It looks like some kind of fabulous jewel.

thanks for posting it, as here in Oz we rarely see frogs any more (getting too dry).

I can't see the shots. All I see is a photobucket notification that the image has been moved or deleted.

I've screwed up all my links. I did fix these, though. Sigh.

I can see them fine and they look great. There's just something about frogs that's really cool.

I am sorry you feel the contest is not happening, but I assure you it is.
So gear up, and take some closeups of strangers. I never thought I would warm to the subject of "Red" - and ended up seeing nothing but. And in good and happy spirits, to boot.
It warmed the cockles of my life to take "red" pictures.

Now enjoy walking up to strangers with your close up lens.......

:rofl:

This guy (or gal, who can tell?) is hanging out in my third wine barrel.

He/she comes out onto the spillway in the mornings and pretends to be a waterlily leaf the rest of the day. I just happened to catch it this morning on the spillway when I was playing with the macro. I kept going in closer and closer and the damned thing just sat there.

I have felt that way since Hubert Shuptrine (water colorist) and James Dickey (poet/writer) teamed up in a book "Home to Jericho" in the seventies.
Your posted photo of the vats round out the picture, and I'm glad I asked.

Just to tug at your heart strings:
The book I mentioned is an art book of consequence of that seventies time frame.
I bought one for my brother, who could groove with the art, though he could not understand English, and the words were lost on him.

My brother died of cigarettes less than a year ago, and his fiance, not knowing I had given him the book, sent it to me at serious expense last week, thinking I would really like it.

Life is such a roller coaster.

Great lens. I actually have another shot that is a bit closer, but shaky hands caused it to be a bit soft.

I thought it had to be more like 100mm, because less than 50mm is getting to be wide-angle...

This lens (termed a "Micro" by Nikon) goes from macro (about 2-4")to infinity. 50 to 60mm is a "normal" lens. It will shoot from a couple of feet to infinity (without magnification). A macro with a mm designation attached to it, allows you to shoot from a couple of inches (providing magnification at the close end) to infinity (with no magnification at mid to long distance). 80mm and upward become telephoto lenses that provide magnification for distant objects and won't focus closer than 10 or 15 feet (roughly speaking).

Wide angle lenses are a whole other ball game. You can get pretty close, get a wide angle and still keep everything in focus, but there is no magnification. So objects in the distance appear very small.

I'm sure those more knowledgeable than I can give you a more technical description, but this is how I deal with micro, macro, mm, wide and telephoto.

My other lens is a "do-it-all" workhorse--28mm to 200mm zoom. I would love to get a 400mm to get those elusive birds that don't appreciate the macro as the frog did, and a really wide angle 15mm or 18mm. But those are dreams for better times.

Do save it for whenever a macro contest comes. I started practicing macro, but I am not going to post my pics of crickets ready to be used for bait (ugh). I love the frog.

or frog contest, as the case may be. And one of these ought to find its way into the 2010 calendar. Really beautiful shots.