How to piss off the wife (and shoot small stuff)

I've been to Afghanistan.

Had car bombs go off, experienced incoming rockets, flown in helicopters, rode in ground convoys through Taliban Central.

Yawn.

Nothing makes my blood run cold like the icy death stare the wife has. I visualize a little Doomsday Clock with exactly how long I have left to live. Funny, the measurement of time is always in seconds...

"Hey baby, I'm going to go shooting at the Butterfly Pavilion tomorrow while you're at work."

Ooops. 30...29...28...27...

"And I'm taking your camera with me."

[Warning...time reset!] ...5...4...3... Shit.

Well, now that I've shared how to piss off the wife, let's talk about shooting small stuff. Why her camera? Don't I have a perfectly good one of my own?

Turns out I do. But....
There are two ways I like to shoot small stuff.

1. A macro lens. Get right in there, count the nose hairs, get amazing detail/depth of field type of lens.
2. A large(ish) telephoto lens. Stand back, get great subject isolation type of lens.

So I took my life in my own hands and took Emily's camera with me. Her D300 has cropped sensor that acts as kind of built in teleconverter and gives my 70-200mm telephoto lens just a little bit more reach.
Which gave me a shot like this:


Nice...the D3oo misses daddy, doesn't it?

[Warning!] 45...44...43...42... Uh-oh. Ok, moving right along...

I also took my D700 with me and had my 105mm macro lens on it. This gave me the versatility to shoot both ways at the drop of my sweaty hat. Those little buggers move fast. Sometimes there's hardly time to raise a camera up let alone change a lens!
It's also easier on the gear. Nikon makes some great stuff and you can pretty much shoot in the rain with the a fore mentioned gear and not worry about ruining it. But if you are switching lenses and the overhead mist kicks on and sprays the inside of you camera? Not so much.
This also prevents from dropping a lens on accident (As long as you're using your camera strap). I'm a paramedic and I've experienced many nasty things, but nothing makes me want to throw up like hearing the sound of one of my lenses hitting concrete.
The 105 Macro is an amazing lens. My buddy Jason said he was counting blood vessels in his dog's nose on one of the first pictures he took with his. Yeah, it's that good.

Like....this good:



You can't count the blood vessels in his nose, mostly because he don't have one, but you get the picture.

"Hi baby, I'm back from shooting! I hope you had as much fun at work as I did today!"

[Warning!] 60...59...58...

"Guess what? They have a "Tripod Time" and a "Sunset Stroll" time where they just let in a few photographers and kick everyone else out. We'll put our name on the list and go next time I'm home!"

"Really? OK!" [Clock has paused]

For those of you who didn't read the post and just looked at the pictures...I can dig it. Check out more pictures from this shoot in my featured gallery on my website!

More pictures, less words!