Day 194 | July 14 2007 | 8 Eyed Spider

This is one spider man which smaller insects gotta be scared of.. the reason is simple.. he's got 8 eyes. I bet he has more than 360 vision. I was tracking this guy for more than an hour with my macro kit. He's made home in a palm plant in my balcony.

He tracked down his prey, a common house fly, ate it, and ran away out of sight. He was aware of my presence, but realised that I was no threat to him, and allowed me to watch the whole drama. Isn't this like cool National Geographic stuff.. well I like to think so :)

Day 156 | June 05 2007 | Stamen

Is that a WOW shot of a stamen? Taken with 4X magnification filter kit, the left stamen was my point of focus. This is an hand held shot and best out of 8. At such magnification levels, a very high shutter speed is needed to compensate for hand shakes. Some experts even recommend holding ones breath while releasing the shutter; and I tried that on this shot successfully.

Day 152 | June 1 2007 | Buzzy Busy Bee

It was difficult capturing this busy bee who moved a lot during our photo shoot, but it was fun. This is the best of a set of 32 pics. I used a 7+ macro filter to get the magnification, and manual focusing.

Taken at the Lalbaug botanical garden, Bangalore.

Day 147 | May 27 2007 | Dried flower from Ooty

A friend gifted us a bunch of dried yellow wild flowers, which he got from Ooty. They open up when watered, and resemble miniature sunflowers. Thats a macro of one such flower.

One major disadvantage of using magnification filters is that they can focus sharply only in the center. The outer areas are hopelessly lost. So framing becomes very critical and important. This is one such experimental macro shot with a 2+ magnification.

Day 146 | May 26 2007 | Which planet is that?

Can you recognise that planet? Well.. I cant either, cos its not one! Its a 15+ (15 times) magnified surface of a compound wall, open to the elements. Everything that is not white is either some sort of algae growth, dried/dead or otherwise. The black ring surrounding, is the inner metal ring of the magnification filters stacked together.

Day 143 | May 23 2007 | I love PCB's

Thats a macro of a PCB - Printed Circuit Board. Its the under side PCB of a 2.5" Momentous Seagate hard drive. The circular section, is the disk motor housing, which spins at 5400 RPM. I love PCB's... and especially the smell of new PC hardware.. a true geek I'm.