Donna is relaxed because I don’t have my phone in her face :O

Instead I was pottering in my kitchen snapping macro-views of things with, I would like to say childlike wonder, except that from what I read that phrase is usually used to describe other people and never yourself. But I did get rather excited and shuffled around looking for more things in the kitchen to take macro pictures of.

But let’s start from the beginning shall we?

So I just started to pick up iPhoneography skills. This week’s topic was “macro”, a format that I was not familiar with. I failed in my first attempt. My dog ate my homework subject. Right. Some things are better done indoors, and with more research.

I knew macro pictures had to be taken with macro lenses so I was uncertain how I was to do that with a camera phone. Is there any specific macro photo app that I should download? Research ensued in which I was educated by a bunch of harebrained people to shoot through a magnifying glass, a water droplet (at the detriment of the phone!), etc, etc. Of course there are macro lens for iPhones on the market if you are so inclined. I’m not.

So anyway, let’s give those harebrained suggestions a shot. Why not, I’m as harebrained as the rest of them anyway. It seemed more prudent to place the drop of water on the lens at the front of the phone rather than the lens on the back of the phone. The front is all plastic covering over the lens, so I thought there would be less worry about the water seeping in there. So what conspired was, the phone was resting stably on a box in front of the window (so there is some indirect light), and the tiny toothpick drop of water sitting on the plastic covering the lens. The rest was just a matter of holding the object to be photographed over the drop of water and positioning it to get as sharp an image on the screen as possible before tapping the phone.

Note: Please understand that Apple does not provide warranty for water damage and iPhones are definitely not waterproof.

And since I was at the same time having an interesting time looking at Meg Greene’s multiple exposures, I thought to try that out. Searched and downloaded the first app Google threw up at me.

I narrowed down my selection to a set of four objects, each with one close-up and one macro snap of it. For each double exposure, I layered a close-up view of an object with the macro shot of another object. Made it into a four-tile collage and this is what I ended up with.

Can you match each close-up to its corresponding macro image?

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Here are the answers:

Dust, scratches, detail and fibre. I was quite amazed by the degree of detail in the macro captures.

Then the light grew bad, so I stopped.

Hello sleepy.

iPhoneography Challenge: Macro
Apps used: Camera+, Instablend, Moldive

By the way, this is the exact size of an image saved from Instablend, so tiny!

I couldn’t find the settings to increase the resolution. The advertising was also very obtrusive and irritating.  So I won’t really recommend it. Let me know if you have an awesome double or multiple exposure app to share, k?

By the way, you guys should check out echo/sight if you are interested in double exposures. Their work is amazing.
– http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1068932801/new-york-london
– http://instagram.com/echosight

References
– http://osxdaily.com/2012/10/07/tips-better-iphone-macro-photos/
– http://osxdaily.com/2012/07/07/take-an-iphone-photo-remotely-using-the-earbuds/