This will be the last variation on the theme, I think. And I probably should have spent the money on therapy...but...have a look:
For reasons not to be revealed, I combed the online classifieds for a couple of days (10-mile radius) for an inexpensive camera. I had three criteria: it had to fall into my meager budget, it had to take AA batteries, and it had to allow the photographer to adjust the aperture in macro mode.
I found the Kodak z740 for $25.00. This camera had the added bonus of having a threaded lens and a lens hood attached that accepted magnifying lenses. That was not key to the purchase, but it was a nice bonus. Therefore, I was able to attach a +4 magnifier to it and take the shots that follow. (The magnifying lenses cost $10.00 from just about any online retailer and come in a set of four of varying strengths - see the other threads in this forum). As with all close-up shots, the depth of focus is pretty narrow. That really comes into play in several of the shots, and I still need to do a little more fiddling to understand how what I'm seeing through the viewfinder is going to translate onto the screen.
The point, again, is that no matter how limited your budget is, you can probably come up with a way to take nice, in-focus closeups of your growing things. Also, none of the photos below have been edited apart from cropping. They came straight out of the camera as they are. I apologize for the subject matter, but there just ain't that much highly compelling (or colorful) stuff around here this time of year. We work with what we have :).
Here's the camera:
In the interest of not taking heat from another ATP member (*muttering something about some unwashed cetacean*), I'm refraining from posting too large a wall of photos :). Here are a
few of the shots (also, YAY BEES!!! They showed up yesterday for the first time this year): [Editor's note: it still looks like a wall of photos, but it's only about 1/4 the size of the other walls...grrrrrrrr!]
