Macro lenses- give me some subject ideas please

Hi,
I have a macro lens- Pentax 100mm 1:1 f2.8 lens.
I've looked through Flickr and googled but can people give me some ideas for stuff to shoot (original, stuff suitable for macro) or show me some nice examples please?
Stuff I've tried-
floral
eyeball (have to try again in better light)
insects- haven't tried beyone if I've stumbled accross one
stuff around the house-
toothbrush, side of book, hairbrush etc.

Cheers,
Pa.

My main use of macro is to show parts of objects that we can't see normally with our eyes, or put simply, show small things . . . big.

My subjects are more or less limited to insects and flowers, but I do have a wide variety of both.

Other possible subjects might be jewelry, coins, stamps, sugar, salt, ice, anything small.

for me it's insects/bugs, bring out the detail hidden by just a casual glance


takes a lot of practice and patience

There are some interesting, almost abstract, patterns to be found on trees and walls

Loads you could shoot , in the garden try shooting decayed leaves, stems , cobwebs , close ups of fungus , you could even bring stuff inside if were having bad weather , good subjects to shoot indoors are old watches , try taking the back off one so you can shoot the mechanical workings , also drawing pins , paper clips and don't forget your lens can be used to do excellent people portraits !

Mal

I took a couple of nice macro shots recently of dew droplets, if you follow the sun across the garden at sun rise you can catch half frozed droplets.

A quick wander round the garden this morning yielded this:-

Pentax K5, Sigma EX DG 180mm Macro, Pentax AF160FC flash.

1/180th, f16, ISO 160, hand held and it was windy.


K51_8260.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr" class="comment_image" />

Small things!

Sorry, I've always thought of a magnification ratio of 1:1 being macro. I didn't want to frighten anybody so I kept it to as close to life size as I could. The mantis was approx. 8cm from head to tip of tail. A handsome beast.

The true definition of macro starts at 1:1, although many earlier macro lenses will only focus to 1:2 without further aids.

Modern zoom lenses that are abelled macro rarely go further than 1:4, still usefully close but not macro.

At some point, I think 10:1 if I remember correctly, macro gives way to being called microphotography.

A few other potential macro subjects to add to the growing list:

Water drops (both as lenses & splashes)
Toy figures/models
wood/stone textures etc.

Holograms can be interesting too, especially with off camera flash as the result varies drastically with the direction of lighting. Those from Euro banknotes work very well but be warned there are all sorts of regulations regarding reproducing banknotes. - IIRC euro ones can have small portions photographed, but you can't display the results on-line except at VERY low resolution. Photographing British banknotes requires permission from the Bank of England.

In the right frame of mind you can find macro oportunities everywhere!

How about the odd coin?






Glyn