Frozen

Hopefully the opportunities to catch these deep frozen macro shots will be becoming rarer as our spring chases off the below zero temperatures, but, until then, I'll keep blipping away at them until they do.

After yesterday's close-up a couple of blippers had asked how I'd taken the shot, so...

These shots were taken using the standard 18-55mm lens that came with my Canon EOS400 and a very cheap set of macro extension tubes - like these. Until I can justify the outlay for a proper macro lens these have allowed me to dabble in this area and find interesting shots out of the lilliputian world that's all around.

Today's is another shot of ice, this time with some air bubbles trapped in it. Yesterday's was of the frost on the shed window with the lens pushed directly on to the glass and taking a shot of the ice crystals less than a couple of millimetres away.

This is one area in which the extension tubes do not match the flexibility of a dedicated macro lens though - you do have to get extremely close to the object. And because, in the case of the set I use, there's no electrical contact with the camera body, there's no control over the aperture. This means that the already narrow depth of field is not controllable and can be as little as a fraction of a millimetre. Fine if you're taking something almost flat, not great if the subject has any depth to it whatsoever, and difficult to control if the object moves even in the slightest.

Still, for the price they cost, they do add another dimension to my photo taking and some of the results can be pretty impressive looking.