Yea, I see great backgrounds to work with too.

Excellent photos.

Cathy, thanks, I thought of backgrounds too, maybe lightened and blurred. My image library is growing.

Your photos always have movement in them. I don't know how you do it.

Nice! It's a near-sighted person's dream come true! A whole new world does open up ... like when I take off my glasses.

The closer you look at anything the more you see. You can almost feel these photographs.

Hattie, that's an interesting observation. In these photos I have a lot of diagonals which do give a suggestion of movement. The blurred edges might also suggest that?

Rouchswalwe, looking through the macro lens is almost like looking through a microscope.

Joe, indeed! I was actually a bit horrified to see how much dust there is on the mat in the second photo!

I'm hooked. I have got Jerry on the internet looking for a macro lens.

Great pictures.

Anne, I'm going to be blamed for introducing you to an expensive hobby! :-) Good luck with the hunt and I look forward to your photos!

When researching the different lens options, may I suggest looking into extension tubes as a possible alternative, depending on the camera you have. I'm happiest so far with the one of three that came in the set, as I wrote about here. I'm now becoming fairly successful using it without the tripod... just thrilled really!

From a distance, how we usually see these things, the colors run together, but close-up - what surprises. I especially like the third photo - the basket. There must be five or six colors on straps. Lovely tones.

Martha, glad you like that one, my favourite too! That and the next one look to me like crusty bread, heh. It is a Finnish birch bark slipper, a treasured pair made by a great-uncle. Hmmm, I should take some regular photos of these to show here - another blog post.