Sorry on my comments I used the name Easy Tune, it should have been Eztune.

Having gone through the hell of calibration and never being totally satisfied with my result, an epiphany for me happened when with the need for a new monitor became apparent. I happened into a Micro-center and found a Gateway that looked nice and was priced well, and I bought it. Started down the same road to calibration HELL, and discovered in the box an unasumeing CD marked Easy Tune, and thought what is this. Loaded it, ran it (which was easy and kind of fun) and discovered if I defaulted my printers software, all seemed to match. I also discovered the CD was specific to Gateway monitors alas. I do not have any need to match anyone else, so with this I became free of the angst of calibration. I gave away several calibrators I had a love/hate relationship with.
This may help someone to crawl out of this sometime mess.

I always try to remember the possibility of pedomatic zooming. It sometimes works.

The lenses are very fine, the danger is the long end.
The problem I see is, in spite of the many safeguards, this long a focal length is analogous to driving a screw with a 20 foot screwdriver.

Not knowing is your thread is pomeganates or macro, it is nice incidentally, here is a little study with no pomegranates but a collage of lots of macro.

Hello all
Just a note to tell you the lion is in a small zoo here and during the winter they are put inside a glass enclosed area, and I was able to sit at about a foot and a half distance from him. In fact he was looking around me for something behind me that appealed more to him, THANKFULLY!!

Jenne
A little trick to help what you are doing is to invest in a rubber lens shade that screws into the front element. Then cup your hand around this and rest all against the glass, with your hand first, then you will have a shadowed cover from reflections and a dampening connection that will add stability. You will be able to move you camera around to frame your image to your needs. And if your f-stop can be set for a larger opening, i.e. 5.6 or so most of the debris on the glass will tend to be out of focus. I saw someone suggested a polarizer. This is very good, but I think better when you are working at a greater distance. With the cupping technique I find they usually get in the way. Also I always carry the little packets of glass cleaner in my pocket and clean a little spot to shoot through. I am including a couple images done this way to see if this technique might be useful to you.
Rborud