I started to get nostalgic about taking macro pictures, and since I didn’t have any good subjects I decided to look through my archives of raw images. I found a good picture, did some post processing and ended up liking the result.

Later on I noticed macro-selfs reflecting in the drops.

The main reason I wanted to go to Canada was so that Alena could see all the great things that I’ve seen. So we were making stops at locations which I’ve visited before many times.

This time around we decided to stop by the botanical garden. I’ve seen signs pointing to it many times, but never actually went there. The garden itself seems to be rather large, and we were short on time, so we visited only one part of it: Butterfly Conservatory.

I armed myself with my new macro lens and went hunting. The first butterfly that we came upon was actually flying outside of conservatory, and the pictures of it came out the best. The conservatory itself was filled with all kinds of beautiful and exotic butterflies. They would even land on people and would refuse to fly away.

But I guess because the lighting condition weren’t great and I’m only an amateur majority of the pictures came out fuzzy. It still was a very fun experience nevertheless.

Then on our way back I stumbled upon a nice bumblebee flying around the flowers. He didn’t really want to strike a pose for me, but I think I still got a nice shot. Looks like he was flying around and collecting nectar from flowers.

My dad took a lot of butterfly pictures as well on his camera. Looks like he and my mom were having fun too. Also we got yet another magnet for our refrigerator. Alena refuses to leave without those from anywhere now. We brought 3 new ones from Canada.

I just love getting presents! This birthday has been especially good for my photography hobby. I got 2 great new lenses. One is a wide lens that I mentioned yesterday was given to my by Alena, my parents and my sister Lina. Today I got another one. An awesome Sigma macro lens (check out the shot on top) from Eldar and Moisha! Last year was great as well, when I got a super zoom lens from Maruks for my birthday. Thank you, everybody!!!

Here’s my current list of lenses (all autofocus), listed in the order I got them:

• Nikon Zoom Super Wide Angle AF 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor
• Sigma Zoom Telephoto 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG APO HSM
• Sigma 2x EX DG APO Autofocus Teleconverter
• Nikon Normal AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
• Sigma Zoom Super Wide Angle 10-20mm f/4-5.6D EX DC HSM
• Sigma Telephoto 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro

I can’t wait to take more pictures with my new ones now. Niagara Falls will be a good test for wide angle lens, weather permitting.