Macro lens - to buy or not to buy, that is the question.....

I have mentioned before that I really like photographing flowers, but there is only so far you can go without a macro lens before all the shots look similar.  However, what macro lens should I go for?  They are expensive and will I make use of it if I buy one?  I assume these are questions that people other than myself ask.  Well due to being on a budget I decided to look into macro extension tubes and managed to pick some up from Amazon for £7.99.  They had good reviews and well if I don't use them much then at least I haven't spend hundreds of pounds.

 So here they are, they just look like a lens but actually they aren't.  The most common way to use them is to place them on the body of your camera and then attach your lens to the other end.  You will find (which I had already discovered from my research) that the auto focus on your lens will no longer work, this is because the lens is not actually attached to the camera, so you will need to manually focus.  The other problem I noticed was that I needed the camera on a tripod to keep it quite steady.

I decided to use all the extension tubes but you can seperate this bundle and only use the ones you want.  I feel that I will need to do a lot of experimenting as whilst I don't hate my results they are not as great as I expected.  I attached these to my 50mm prime but maybe this wasn't the best lens or maybe as I have played in the evening that the light was not as good as it could have been, or maybe I really am not good at manually focusing........

I am not going to let non perfect results hold me back though and will continue to see if I can figure out how to get good results from extension tubes and report back at a later date.

Bluebell woods

There is nothing I like better than getting outside on a sunny day with my camera capturing some pretty flower pictures.  This bank holiday was no exception and seeing as the weather has been pretty shocking so far this year I jumped at the opportunity to join some friends at Harcourt Arboretum in Oxford for a picnic and a wander.

It was so peaceful there and was lovely to be greeted by a beautiful peacock.

I challenged myself to sticking to my 50mm lens, I don't use it very often so thought this was a perfect time for a challenge.  Obviously the only real challenge was that I couldn't zoom in and out so had to move myself rather than the lens but I am still very happy with my results.

Our visit was perfectly timed for the bluebells and most of the rhododendrons were out in full bloom, although I'm sure in a couple of weeks they would all be open.  

                                         I loved how this tree looked like it had a face :-)

         And you never know what you might find in little clearings if you look hard enough!

Thank you for visiting and hope you have enjoyed.
For more info about the arboretum