This is only a test

Lately I’ve been experimenting with what I call “zoom-macros”: up-close, macro-like shots taken from a distance with my point-and-shoot digicam’s zoom. The first time I took a zoom-macro, I was too lazy to crouch down and stick my camera right in the face of some short flower; another time, I zoomed to take up-close shots of the frost feathers in an overhead tree. When height, unstable terrain, or other challenges prevent you from sticking your camera right up close to what you’re shooting–or when crouching would insert your own shadow between the sun and the very flower you’re trying to photograph–standing back and relying upon your digicam’s zoom is a workable alternative.

The most useful use of a zoom-macro, I’ve found, is in shooting insects, which tend to fly away (or, in the case of bees, sting you) if you stick a digicam in their face. When I bought my new Panasonic Lumix digicam last Christmas, one of the features I coveted was its 10x optical zoom, several steps up from the 6x optical zoom on my previous Lumix. Although I wanted a more powerful zoom primarily for shooting pictures at hockey and basketball games where J and I tend to have almost-nosebleed seats, I was intrigued to see my new camera’s manual recommend the zoom for the other sorts of shots I’d experimented with, advising that photographers employ what they called “tele-macro” for taking up-close shots of insects or wary animals. Here I thought I’d invented (and named) the technique simply because I’d never heard of anyone else doing it!

When it comes to photography, like anything, there’s nothing new under the sun: I’m sure folks have been using zoom lenses to take extreme closeups since those lenses were invented. Still, since I’m not one to actually read a camera manual, I’m still learning (through trial and error) how to use my “new” Lumix more than six months after I bought it. Now that I’ve almost perfected the art of the zoom-macro, I now have a bigger challenge. How do you get a pair of flower-distracted bumblebees to look at you so you can snap their taken-from-a-distance picture?