Well, today was fairly exciting for me.  I finally went out and bought my first Macro lens.  I probably splurged a bit more than I really needed to, but I can’t help it!  New toy!  I got the Nikon 200mm f/4.0D ED-IF AF Micro-Nikkor. Now, this particular lens is FAR more than a complete macro amateur like myself would ever need, but I must say that after an afternoon of playing with it, it’s amazing.  It has such crisp optics and I love the solid feel of it, though it does make me really appreciate my image stabilized lenses!  This lens, and macro photography in general, are going to take a lot of work to get right. Today was mostly trying to take pictures of plants and bugs in my backyard.  Of course, it figures, the one time I want to find bugs they’re nowhere to be found.  Couldn’t find a single rolly-polly, ant, spider, beetle or snail.  Simply nothing.  It was a barren wasteland.  I’m sure the neighbors think I’m crazy, lugging around a camera, tripod, light stands and flashes while digging through the grass and bushes. I’m not going to post any pictures today because I didn’t manage to get anything worth keeping.  Not that I really expected to on the first day.  It’s going to be a challenge to get used to such a narrow depth of field.  Looking at some of the sample pictures online, it seems that it would be so easy to do!  Now, I didn’t really think this would be the case, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping I’d be a natural from the first shot!  😉 So far, I’m really excited by this new (to me) area of photography.  Tomorrow afternoon I’m headed off to the Long Beach Aquarium.  I think I’ll bring my new toy along and see if I can make anything interesting happen with it.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed!