We had visitor and decided to show them around Punta Gorda. It wasn’t really a hard core photo day, just traveling around town showing them the sites. I put the 24-85mm on the Nikon D300 and decided that it was all I was going to pack.
It really isn’t a macro lens but, it does have a macro switch allowing it to focus a bit closer in the 35-85mm range. While I was waiting for the others to get ready, I walked around the house and found the usual array of bugs on the shrubbery.
I set it to macro and tried getting one of the very quick green metallic bees that we sometimes see. Since it doesn’t get to 1:1 magnification, I had to shoot at a lower ratio and crop. You can see the full image in the left and the crop in the right. Click for full size.
Here is a similar pair of a beelike fly.
It’s not going to replace a dedicated macro lens but it still gives a useable image. The next stop was a nice fresh hibiscus. The background here was brighly lit dormant grass. It was pretty light to begin with and the flower was in soft shadow. Exposing for the flower let the grass blow out to a clean white. The only processing on this picture was a slight curve adjustment and a bit of sharpening. Then it was cropped and resized for this blog.
The next stop was Laishley Park where there was an Italian Festival. We stopped for lunch and sat on the bank near the river. A lot of folks were tossing scraps to the gulls. You wouldn’t normally consider an 85mm lens good for Bird In Flight shots but, with the baited gulls, I was able to get this shot of a Laughing Gull turning into it’s summer colors.
We left Laishley and went out to the Carmalita Park area. The Punta Gorda Horsemans Association was having a Hunter/Jumper show today. The bright day was good for a couple of jumping shots. Here’s one of them.
Then, it was off home for dinner. While it was cooking a bit of color came to the sky so a quick trip to Ponce de Leon park for the sunset was in order. It wasn’t a really great one but there was enough cloud to give it a bit of character.
And, so ended a one lens day of casual shots while showing off the town.
Birds n bugs's Blog 
Thanks for responding to my question about my 24-85 mm Macro lens.
I notice you say it is not really a Macro and I wonder why. After I got your answer I picked up my camera and tried to see how close I could get to the screen of my laptop.
Here is the picture
http://flic.kr/p/cUWnbw
The lens was about 2 inches from the screen, which is what I always thought defined Macro, that is, get in close and fill the screen with the image.
Just curious about comment and thanks again.
Joel Blackwell
Macro is usually defined as 1:1 magnification where the image on the sensor is the same size as the subject. The 24-85mm isn’t capable of that. I still like the lens though.
Frankly, since we no longer have film to measure from, and never see the image in the size on the sensor, I think macro is wasted as a term. If I were doing photogrammetry, I would be scaling up the virtual rulers and still looking at a larger image than the sensor size.