Christmas is a time for giving.   Yeah, it is.  But you also like to get stuff.    There wasn’t much I wanted this year, so my list, to my family’s dismay, was short.   One big thing I wanted was a close up lens for my nifty-fifty.   I’ve gone on an on about how much I love my 50mm 1.4.   I don’t think I told you that I bought a new one since the old one broke, but that’s painful and I don’t want to talk about it.

But I do want to talk about the close up lens.    The nifty-fifty is an amazing lens, but it can’t take photos closer than a few feet.  Which is fine for the most part, but sometimes I want to get right in there.  Canon make a few close up lenses that let you focus on objects 5 or 6 inches away from the lens.

This is taken as close as I can with the 50mm.  Nice photo, but I want to get closer.   I could crop in, but why have a full frame camera and all those megapixels if you’re just going to crop them out?

With the close up lens I can do this:
Maybe you saw my Ritchey Woods photos a few months back? Those were taken with Gale’s close up lens. Just need a chance to get out and try it out.

Conner Prairie is a living museum in Fishers, Indiana.  It’s also less than ten minutes from my house.  We paid them a visit on the last day of the season.  The gardens were dying, the air was chilled and the people stuck in the 1800’s tired and ready for a winter’s nap.   But we managed to get a few nice photos.

Tired little bee just waiting for the winter.

The people in costume are from the time period. So get confused by cameras and our lack of knowledge. This girl spends all day throwing pots.

They also have sheep, cows, horses, pigs and goats. This guy was pretty happy to let me take his photo.

If only I could get paid for taking photos of stuff.  What a great life.  A tough life though.  Not a lot of money unless you are really really good and take photos of people.

We went to Cave Hill last week and Crown Hill this week.  Crown Hill has the benefit of being local.  So not such a disappointment when I don’t get any good photos.   Did have a bit of a worry though.  Using my beloved 50mm and it stopped autofocusing, then stopped allowing me to manual focus.   I was taking photos by moving closer to the object and hoping for the best.   Luckily I got home and coaxed it a little (by hitting it a few times) and then pulling th elens as I focused and it was brought back to life.   Can’t live without my nifty-fifty.   AND today, my second monitor broke.  it’s been on the way out for a while and today decided it was done.  Luckily monitors are pretty cheap.   Got a nice 23″ Acer on the way.   Thank goodness for credit.

I’ve had a great week on Instagram.  14 features!  Tons of comments and a load of new followers.

My second day off. Supposed to be cleaning out the garage. Nope. Gale wanted to go back to Ritchey Wood. I nearly didn’t take my camera, since didn’t think I’d get anything that I didn’t get yesterday. But Gale let me use her close up lens. Which screws on the front of my 50mm. So gave me a slightly different perspective. 295 photos later…..