Poppy

A bumble bee view of a California Poppy at the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, Mojave Desert, California.

This fun technique is one I would like to play around with some more this winter.  What I do is put my smallest extension tube on a wide angle lens.  This now gives me the ability to focus very close.  I basically have the lens sitting in the flower, and I’m able to focus on portions of the flower that are a mere fraction of an inch from the front of the lens.  With certain wide angle lenses, I can actually focus on the front of the lens.  I have tested it by pointing the lens upwards, and laying a small piece of newspaper on the lens – I can actually focus on the writing. 

The extension tube allows very close focus, but you do lose the ability to focus far away objects, and you completely lose infinity focus, but that is ok.  Even in this image, you can see the flowers just a few feet away are out of focus despite my an aperture of f/18. 

I can tell you from experience that the biggest challenge to this technique is avoiding the shadow created by the front of the lens – something you would never think about otherwise.  The sun pretty much needs to be at a right angle to the lens, or out in front of you or you will end up with a nice round shadow at the bottom of the frame. 

Digital is invaluable with the technique since you really can’t see through the viewfinder.  I put the camera in the flower, next to the flower, or like the shot a couple of posts ago, under the flower and then fire away.  I then review the images on the back of the camera and adjust the camera position and shoot some more – its fun!