Close-up Photography

For those of you who are into knitting, here's a photo of some yarn.

One time when I was at Michaels, they had these  neat, lightweight (and with the coupon, cheap) bins. I snapped one up for my living room. 

I have several containers of various shapes and sizes placed strategically around my place to display yarn. There's a Halloween cauldron on top of my bookcase with a selection of yarns to make Christmas stockings. I bought the cauldron to display yarn, but also because it has a nice, rounded shape, so a ball (or knot) or yarn will spin nicely in it while I'm unwinding it to do something with it. Also, it has a handle, so it's easy to grab and put next to (or better yet, in front of) the chair I'm sitting in so it's easy to pick out colors and yarns.

For Christmas stockings, I know the basic stocking pattern, so I just pick out yarn colors and patterns as I go along, and as I get inspired. So having the yarn in front of me helps. I can lean forward and see how the already completed part goes with something in the stack.

Actually, I should get started on knitting Christmas stockings now if I want to have some to sell. Selling some stuff is something I have to do if I plan to have food for the rest of the month (ending on the 16th of July).

Yarn is decorative, in my opinion. Why should my stash be put away where I can't see it? Most flowers (especially roses) have scents that make me feel ill. I'd rather display my yarn than a bouquet of roses.

Well, on to the topic of photography.

I was going to cover a lot before my excursion into displaying yarn distracted me. Now, I think I'll just cover picking a camera.

The most important thing is to read all the technical gobbledegook and find out what the manufacturer says about close up photography with that camera. This will usually be something that says how far (close) the lens will focus to. So, if it says close-up to 1 inch, you can get the lens as close as 1 inch to the thing you're photographing.

If you plan to take photos of rings or other small pieces of jewelry, that may be a good thing. If not, and you just want to take photos of a flower or something, you may only need two inches or even more may be adequate.

Bear in mind that a lens may focus closely enough to record most of what you want to do, and you may want to get an auxiliary lens for real close ups. Also, telephoto capabilities may make up for not being able to get close to something you want to photograph.

For instance, the Canon Powershot S5 will focus down to about 4 inches in macro mode. But with the addition of a lens/filter adapter, you can put a close up lens on it.

I'll add more to this post later.