So I finally bought a macro lens

[TheAnimus]

What do you guys think?

(in all seriousness, I intend to actually do some macro photography, its just the girl friend was asking me, having had the lens a week, what have I done. Open to suggestions of good things to practice on, for someone who's on the go lacking time)

[r_j_k_p]

Is that Mitchell Library?
Think its a nice shot, i'd rather have it cropped in tighter so have less trees in, but personal preference.

[kalniel]

I use mine for portraits as much as macros

Nice clean image, lacking a bit of perceived sharpness in fine detail but that's probably due to scaling as much as anything else.

Macro turns the mundane into 'arty' if you want to practise - any texture can become interesting, not sure what you really gain from it though. Flowers are my routine test subjects as you get a good sense of d.o.f at different apertures and distances.

[TheAnimus]

It's St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, well in The Vatican.

I didn't want to crop it much, because I loved the back-lighting on the trees that night.

Kalniel, I thought about flowers too, but I was suffering chronic allergies, making my asthma rather bad too ended up having to take a lot of drugs that weekend, luckily I'd grabbed my 75l pack, which has comprehensive first aid kits designed for when travelling, but no amount of Prednisolone, Loratadine and Cromoglicic Acid could stop it going near flowers wasn't really a good idea, so sadly I lurked mostly in places with AC.

[kalniel]

Sorry to hear about the allergies/asthma Can see why that'd be a problem for flowers. There was an article somewhere (fairly lefty - either beeb or grauniad - so you won't have seen it ) about gardens/flowers for people with allergies, they recommended mornings as a good time to enjoy them, and also noted that bee attracting flowers (generally enclosed, bell-like petals etc.) are also better for sufferers, and they tend to be more interesting to shoot as well