Finaly spring is here! But it´s a cold and wet one. Last year we had around 30 degrees Celsius and a very dry weather in April,and May but this year is different. It rains a lot and temperatures reach rarely 20 degrees Celsius. Not the best conditions to take images outdoors but the good thing is that everthing grows very fast in our garden. Like last year I let the gras grow on some places. By end of May the grass on some points reached my hips and the highest blades are 6 feet high. I will cut it down within the next two weeks to let it grow again a second time this summer.

This image was taken on one of the best days this spring. It was very warm ( around 23 degrees Celsius ) and more important calm in the evening to allow some closeups.

I have chosen this image because I asked the guys in the dpreview-forum which one the like the most and the ladybug was the winner. The other images I took this spring in our garden can be seen in the GARDEN folder.

The tricky thing in closeupphotography is that you should use a small aperture to gain depth of field but still leave the background nicely blurred. That´s why I prefer closeups in natural light ( no flash ) and with apertures between f5.6 and f11 ( on a 180mm macro lens ). A longer lens like a 180mm helps a lot to isolate the subject from the background. This is much more difficult with a 60mm or 90mm lens. If you own a 70-200VR or 80-400VR but no closeuplens yet you should give the Canon 500D ( 77mm ) diopter a try. This device ( a single glass to screw on the lens like a filter ) reduces the minimum focus distance. It´s a cheap way to try out closeup photography without bying a new lens.

settings: A-Mode, 1/250s@f8 and 200ASA, Gitzo tripod, WB: cloudy-3