Looking through the glass

Musings - always in edit mode.

[A few notes on the tile:

"Looking through the glass" refers to the glass of the lens and also the book by Lewis Carroll.

The lens of the camera is the glass that "sees all", like the "Eye of Sauron". And what we call a photo is really what the "glass eye" sees.

The second reference to Lewis Carroll is to his famous book "Alice in Wonderland" and its sequel "Through the Looking-glass". My younger version was very fascinated by tales of Alice and how she used the "Drink-Me" potions to become large or small. She interacted with bugs, caterpillars, and such, and really "lived" the "large macro world".]

The journey started with simple lens adapters for the basic objective on my SLR. I had the popular Canon 350D at the time, with the kit lens. Managed to get closeups of few snow flakes using those adapters. Quite a revelation it was to see the unique patterns on each flake. 

The journey continued with using a normal point-and-shoot camera and taking it as close to the subject as possible. Subjects varied from rusted bolts on railings, fresh blooming flowers, budding leaves, fresh cut melons, etc.

As the interest waxed, I moved to a quality macro lens, the Canon EF 100mm Macro. The lens was introduced to me in a macro-photography workshop at the local photography club. This lens opened the doors to what I call the "large world of the macro". Tiny things had stories to tell - little critter legs were not just sticks, but hairy appendages with hooks (what looked like hooks on spiders were actually claws). I could see the runny nose of a common house lizard (a gecko), as if in urgent need of a nose wipe. A close up of the gecko face looked like a beautiful frozen smile.

Soon mobile cameras could do more, and using a Samsung S6 for macro was a delight. The processing engine made short work of post processing, which was relegated to mainly cropping and a bit of touch-up. Many delightful captures followed the few years of using this mobile. Some images went on Twitter and Instagram, but did not find those mediums as engaging as a blog. The mobile made me lay down the SLR for quite some time. I did take it on a few trips, but the easy, weightless travel with the mobile was so much simpler.

The next generation mobile, the Samsung S10e, went further with crispier images and 2 lenses. An ultra-wide added a broader perspective😋. The panorama function was quite useful to generate a sweeping view from hilltops or wide landscapes. 

Taking a step further was the lens attachments that I found quite amazing. My dad had mentioned it many years ago, talking about how easy it was to add an extra zoom on any mobile. I had not given it a serious thought at first, but some inspiration (which was a sale in a local store), made me buy a few packages. One such 5-in-1 package included a fish-eye, 2x zoom, wide, polariser and most importantly a 15x macro. There was another 18x zoom with a nifty stand. This zoom was very tricky to use, very shaky, and difficult to tell if I had found the focus. A few moon shot tests were good enough, and will wait for the winter to get darker nights. The best test would be to get the Pleiades cluster.