
By getting up "close and personal" with very small things, it is possible to bring the camera inside. And it gives a whole new perspective to how these things are seen.
Look at the photo of the needle from Linda's sewing basket, or more accurately the eye of the needle. You can see that even the strands of the thread are really made up of many threads and the needle is no where near as smooth as you probably have thought a needle is. For this picture, the needle was magnified about eight times in the camera. In other words, what you see in the photo is exactly what I saw in the camera's viewfinder.
You actually have to think big to take pictures of small things. The technique is known as macro photography. It typically requires some special lenses or unique lens combinations to magnify tiny subjects. And magnifying the subject also means that any camera movement is also magnified, so it is important that everything be kept as still as possible. And adjustments for focus can be almost microscopic. In other words, you just can't pick up the camera and do this. You might say, the smaller the subject, the bigger the obstacles.
The photo below shows the setup I put together for my macros. The camera and the subject stage are mounted on a common base to keep them from moving. Both the camera and the subject are mounted on rails and can be adjusted forward-backward and left-right using fine screw adjustments. The subject stage can also be adjusted vertically. Currently three LED lamps are used for lighting the subject.
If you look right in front of the lens in the photo below, you can see the needle from the pictures above. It is stuck in a ball of clay which holds it in position on the small laboratory jack that is used for up-down adjustments. Also, notice how close the lights are to the needle.
This is all a lot of fun, so you can expect to see more photos of small things in the future.