139. I ♥ Macro

In terms of cost & equipment, photography is the artistic equivalent of sailing as a hobby.  If you don't have a lot of money, or know someone who'll let you use their gear, it's hard to get off the ground.  Anyone can take a lesson or have a basic appreciation for it, but to do it well and really enjoy it, you're gonna need a lot of free time and disposable income.

I didn't know any of this when I got into it.  My parents bought me my first "real" camera when I decided to study photography in college.  It was a 35mm Pentax SLR that I had a lot of fun using and burned through lots of film with.  A couple years later I bought myself an $800 telephoto lens to go with it.  That was it for the next eight years.  As everyone switched to digital I went through two or three pocket cameras and borrowed friends' digital SLRs when I wanted to really shoot something.

Then two years ago I decided to spring for my own fancy new camera.  After an obsessive compulsive amount of research, I sprung for the Nikon D300 with a 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.  The camera's great and the lens is good for all-around shooting when I'm not trying to do anything special like shoot sports or things in the dark.  The first thing I shot with it was a dance show at my school that I had choreographed for.  Shooting the show was as much fun as working on it.

Now that I've had some time to play with the camera and use it in different situations, I'm getting a feel for lenses and other accessories that would help me get the shots I want.  For instance, a macro lens would let me shoot close-up portraits and still lifes with a nice blurry background that added to the atmosphere but didn't detract from the subject of the picture.  Like this:

I found this picture on Amazon.  Someone who has the lens I want uploaded it as an example.  See how the baby's face is in focus, but the rest of her body blurs in the background?  It makes the most important part of the photograph pop and the rest of it recede.  This is important in lots of situations when you really wanna highlight something.  But it's hard to do close-up.  The lens I have can pull it off if I'm five or more feet from my subject.  Otherwise I have to take what I get or edit the picture in Photoshop to blur the parts I want blurred.  That's not uncommon, but I have a principle objection to that kinda thing.

Unfortunately, a great macro lens is about $1,200.  Fortunately, a really good one is about $400.  I don't presently have that many dollars lying around, but at least it's a conceivable amount of money to save or earn or re-allocate from somewhere.  I definitely see this lens in my future.  It would make my food photography a lot better (not that I'll be doing it for that long), and it would just make me a more well-rounded photographer.

Granted, I've given up on doing photography for money.  So I maybe shouldn't be investing that much money in it.  But the heart wants what it wants.  And I already love it so much.