If you've read this blog before you'd know that I like taking photos. I like taking photos of my two crazy dogs, but I really like taking photos of flowers. I think flowers are incredible samples of nature. I mean what's better than a glossy orange tulip or a feathery pink hibiscus? Not too much.

Moving to California has brought a whole new set of flowers into my vocabulary. I don't stop at azalea and iris anymore. Now I can talk about bougainvillea and angel's trumpet. I head out in the garden at some point every day and today I fixed on fuzzy, yellow kangaroo paw.

This image was taken at the maximum focal length of my 55mm lens. I can get close and with a crop I could remove a lot of the background "noise" but then the final size of the photo would be smaller.

Enter the magnifying lens filter.

With an 8x magnifying lens filter and my focal length set to the same 55mm, I can get so up this flower's nose it's not even funny. As you can see a lot of the background has been left out and what's left is a sharply focused flower and shorter focal depth. I think I'll have to get a couple more lens filters because I can have lots of camera fun for about 10 bucks!