MPJ

Most of the popular digital and DSLR cameras are perfectly equipped for macro photos. Taking a great photo by zooming to the scene not farther than 20-30 centimeters is a little effort and requires only clicking the shutter button and leaving all the technicalities to the camera's automated software. Even the cheap lenses can do that without a problem. While ago I collected some of those photos and wrote a little about macro photography and how to record all the close objects not very distant from our nose. But, can we do closer than that? Can we take a photo of an object like top of the pencil, as close as couple of millimeters away from the lens, for example, like the one in this photo: Dot-sized larvae of cricket or grasshopper invading our balcony flowerpot Well, not with a consumer camera, not without specialized optics. However, "augmenting" our smartphones to do the magic is just a little effort. And yes, I took above photo with only my smartphone, addi...

I think I inherited passion for photography from my grandfather and my father after him. That was somewhat ironical because my grandfather lived his prosperity years and his youth in the age when photography was in its early years and developing, state of the art, black and white photos of the time belonged strictly to professional realm, so to speak. Even so, his living room and hallways were always full of artistic photos, paintings and remastered photographs he liked the most. Even later, during my father photographer's passion, some 40 years ago, when first color films came to stores, having your own optically and chemically equipped darkroom lab in order to develop negatives and print your own photographs was too expensive. Although it was not so cheap to buy even a decent SLR camera to capture perfect moments in time, if you are following your passion and to quote master Oogway, nothing is impossible. So in the aftermath, what I remember the most from my childhood was those...