Where I grew up in N.E. Nebraska, that kind of building would store feed grains -- usually shelled corn. They were fairly easy to put together, often by the farmer or the sales rep after pouring a round concrete base for it to sit on.

Your example illustrates that not only is it entirely appropriate to crop a photo to better proportions than can be obtained by the fixed shape of the camera's design, but sometimes it is impossible to be able to get the desired photograph any other way. The increase in available megapixels these days has helped keep acceptable quality for a certain amount of enlargement as well.

Before I had a Nikon F my first SLR was a Miranda Sensorex with its 50 mm lens. It was a good camera, but had a tendency to give exposure readings a little too dark with ASA 25. It did okay with ASA 64, though. I ended up shooting a lot of Ektachrome 64 and 160 with it -- a lot of the 160 from 100' rolls, self loading into cassettes and doing some of my own developing. E4 stuff, I never did develop E6 but heard it was easier.

There is some good information here on UHH in the True Macro-Photography Forum regarding the definitions of true macro, micro-photography, and equipment and techniques.

No, I think I'll hang on to it -- not necessarily because my 43-86's condition is somewhat better than "ugly" but because it is great fun to be able to say I have one ... and I LIKE it!

By the way, when you save up for all that time for the esteemed 43-86, keep in mind that the first time Nikon made that lens it got the reputation for the worst lens they ever made. Without knowing that, I accidentally and fortunately bought version 2 (check the serial numbers) of a used 43-86 (many years ago) and it was actually quite good! I used it a lot on a Nikon F and once in a while still on a D700.

Maybe I spent too much time this past year photographing small critters & such -- Butterflies, Bugs, Bees, and Flowers on Weeds ... but it sure was interesting! That probably is what gave me the context for making the Christmas card that I did. Before decorating, the original started out as a 720nm infrared photo from a converted Nikon D90. (I may post the "undecorated" photo at a later time)

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I was out with the camera October 20th and saw one of these really tiny butterflies, quickly darting about as they always do. Too fast for me -- I've never been able to photograph one before! They almost look pale white to the eye as they fly around, but when they stop and open their wings the top patterns have really rich dark orange and blue colors. All photos I've taken of the top of its wings so far are not good, but I included a small one next to the "Info" panel to kind of show what they're like.

I didn't know until yesterday what kind of butterflies these are. Our daughter looked it up for me. I get lost in those insect ID web sites. There needs to be something like facial recognition, you know -- like those TV detective shows where someone is identified even from a blurry reflection in a dirty car window. Without something like that some of us blurry bug photographers don't stand a chance!

These are even much smaller than a Skipper so a lot of magnification is needed for a photo ... and they usually fly off before the camera can get close enough for that.

During the Summer, several kinds of insects gather at these clumps of plants having yellow daisy-like flowers the size of a nickel. At the time of this photo all that had dried up. The center of that nickel-sized flower has a pad underneath that is slightly less than 3/8 of an inch in diameter. That small 3/8" pad is what the butterfly is sitting on -- just a bit of help for "how tiny is it?".

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Wow! Bird photography is one of the more difficult things to do. Photographing them that well in a natural setting shows some amazing artistic and technical ability as well. Very well done!

Could I ask what camera/lens support you used for those? (hand held/monopod/tripod ... ?) I have a tendency to use hand held more often than I should with my older equipment and wonder how much difference is made by more up-to-date gear with image stabilization, etc. Thanks.

A friend of mine recently purchased the same camera you used for those photos. I was about to ask him how he likes using it so far. Pretty sure I already know!

Very well done!

Nice photo! There's nothing wrong with having the distant landscape features less sharp. Master painters used that technique of decreasing sharpness with greater distances to give the impression of distance!

A macro lens is much better for doing true macro work (not just a lens with closeup capability that stamps "macro" somewhere on the lens barrel -- they're not). Make sure to get one with long enough focal length to give sufficient working distance (I prefer 105 mm or more) and you can attach extension tubes to a true macro lens to get even more magnification. Better advice than mine can be found in the UHH macro section.

For me, "storage is cheap" so I shoot both RAW and JPEG so that reviewing on the computer is easy with the JPEG files and the digital darkroom work is possible using the RAW files.

I have some clusters of small flowers that attract a wide variety of small insects. I recently added 49.5 mm of extension tubes to a 300 mm lens and was able to get photos of some critters like skipper butterflies and damselflies that for many years have always been too active and skittish to capture with a macro lens at close distance. My working distance with the new setup was about four feet or so, just enough so that I was ignored and their activities remained normal. Camera + Lens totaled five pounds and I soon found that to be too much for a sustained session of handheld shots. A gimbal head on the monopod worked best for me.

I like my D700 so well that, since we are fiddling with fantasy, it would be nice if Nikon could swap out the sensor for one with more megapixels (I have no interest in doing video) and stuff Image Stabilization in the body somewhere because I also really like lenses that still have an aperture ring. The only VR lens I have is one I keep on the D90 which has been converted to infrared.

Excellent work! May I ask what kind of flowers those are?