Ladybugs – Macro Lens for Micro Photography

I learned a lot about lenses recently. I went to a camera store and told the salesman I wanted a lens that would let me take better pictures of Ladybugs. Apparently he gets lots of requests like that, because he said he had just the lens I wanted. Did you know that you have to have a Macro (meaning very large in scale) lens to take pictures of Micro (meaning very small in scale) things? Seems counter intuitive.

The salesman put one on a camera, and showed me how to use it. I played around with it for a while, pretending that the words on a magazine cover were ladybugs.

I wasn’t ready to buy one yet though, because I was shopping, not buying. To me these are two different activities. But The Car Guy was with me, and to him, shopping and buying are one and the same thing. So he said to the salesman, “We’ll take it.” He didn’t even ask the price. He didn’t go to another store to compare prices. He just bought it. We were in and out of the store so fast that the parking meter had barely begun to count down the time. The Car Guy is exciting to shop with!

We took the lens home, and I went outside looking for Ladybugs.

Photo 1: This is a picture of a ladybug taken with the old lens – an 18 to 55 zoom lens. Let’s call this ladybug Larry. Ladybugs can be male or female, and it is pretty hard to tell one gender from another.

Photo 2: This is a picture of a ladybug with the new  60mm 2.8 macro lens. Let’s call her Lucy. See how much bigger Lucy appears than Larry? I should mention here that neither Larry nor Lucy caused the damage you see on the leaves. That was from the hail storm.

Photo 3: This is Larry, the ladybug in Photo 1, after I cropped the photo.

Photo 4: Here is Lucy, the ladybug from Photo 2, after I have cropped the photo. See how much clearer the resolution is than Photo 3?

Photo 5: A side view of another Ladybug, Linda. This photo was cropped as well. Linda is hoovering things off the top of this surface, I think. They are very beneficial bugs to have in the garden!

It is very hard to take these really close up pictures. The Ladybugs get quite skittish when a big black lens starts closing in on them and it tends to make them head for the under side of the leaf they are sitting on. Rest assured, though, that no Ladybugs were actually harmed in the making of these photos! Scared a bit, maybe, but not harmed.

How brave a ladybug must be!
Each drop of rain is big as she.
Can you imagine what you’d do,
If raindrops fell as big as you?
– Aileen Fisher –

Which bug is the superpower of the bug world where you live?