Macro Gummy Bear
It becomes a hassle to travel and carry camera gear. You have to decide before you leave, what you're going to need on your trip.
Most of the time, Melinda and I will take off for weekend trips with the sole purpose of "vacation". I've seldom taken off for a photo-purposed trip. Generally, if going to a generic city for a weekend, I'll take my big camera with two lenses, Melinda's point 'n shoot, our GoPro, and a small, medium & large tripod. The two lenses I bring are my f2.8 24-70 (good for general purpose) and my f2.0 28 (my fastest lens). So I've got an "all around" lens, and I use the f2.0 to snapshot with when walking around at night.
Usually, I'm always wearing my small backpack, so no piece of equipment is that far behind. What usually bites me in the ass is not having certain equipment with me. I own one long zoom lens, and one set of macro adapters. Zooms are easy, there's nothing to learn. If you can aim and focus, you're set. The zoom lens is big though, so unless I know I'm going to be somewhere with great wildlife photography access, I'll leave it at home. My macro adapters are smaller than a small apple though. They're easy to bring with me. But.
Macro photography is a whole different story.
What I've learned so far:
- I need a tripod. I don't have the skill and/or knowhow to handhold a macro shot
- Focus is incredibly hard. I know all the requirements and skills, I just find it incredibly hard to implement.
- I don't know what to take photos of. What's interesting up close? What would be right for my channels?
So, I just practiced for a good, solid 25 minutes 😛. I think that header image up there was my best (the giant, fullscreen gummy bear). The focus isn't perfect, but I don't own an overhead camera rig, so I couldn't get Mr. Gummy to align with my camera's sensor.
I figured it's always helpful to own something to take macro photos, but I don't know if they'll be part of my "on the go" travel pack. I don't know... they are small. Maybe I'll keep 'em around to take photos of seashells or snowflakes in the future.
What do you think?
ps - here's my setup to take the above picture
the macro adapters I use:
