Microscope mode WG-4

The little WG-4 has some not pro but fun features like microscope mode. Bit tricky to use this super macro but does let the eye see what it cannot alone.

This is the black and yellow common garden spider of N. America. One of the orb weavers, this specimen is 1" long which is what 2.3 cm? It will grow to 8cm over the summer if successful. Taken a meter from my back door it cooperated quite well with me placing the lens a cm away from touching it. It is fairly harmless, will not enter a house, and has a most interesting dog like head. I named it Charlotte. The Pentax WG-4 has turned out to be a bit problematic in just making a snapshot (auto mode is not so auto) but the various shooting modes and durability make it one fun camera. If I were still in the classroom as a teacher I would acquire a dozen of these little cameras and turn the students into photojournalists for so many fun projects.

It is quite obvious I color adjusted the shot quite a bit. One big problem with the little WG-4 is that even shooting at highest of resolution the images do not crop well in that they seem to lose resolution easily. In microscope mode it is stuck in 2mp res. In auto mode one must set the white balance to conditions or get a washed out image. I find myself adjusting this camera as much as I would a DSLR in manual mode.