Eeeww!! Giant bug!

I discovered this fellow hanging from my carport wall. At first, I thought what you did, eek! Then, I looked again and realized it was a skin of bug. (Bug: a creepy crawly thing with more legs than a dog.) These guys live underground for years and suddenly they all surface, shed their skins, spread their wings, which are under the skin, fly off, meet girls or a guy, have bug marriage, lay some eggs, and die. What has that to do with photography?
Why? that would be macro-photography. The technique of taking a picture of something small and making it fit the view screen. For this, I have a macro lens. Being the thrifty type, I spotted the lens in a pawnshop attached to a Nikon N2000. I really didn't want the body, but did want the lens. And it wasn't that expensive. I'll sell the body separately on ebay. I still have the body, it's a good unit, oh well.
I set the lens at 1:1.5. umm.....did everybody get that? No?
That is the ratio of image to object. The object (bug) is one and a half times the size as the image. Translation: picture of bug is real big on the film ( or digital medium) which allows us to see details we normally would not see. Look carefully, there are white net like fibers across the face of the bug, those are mold filaments.

Being in photography there is no free lunch, note the items that must be thought about before taking the picture. When shooting really close the depth of field (the area that is in focus) is very narrow. You must take care that the little sharply focused area is on something important, normally the eyes. Flowers don't have eyes, so good luck.
The greater the magnification the greater the camera shake. I found that around 1/4 sec exposure the picture had some blurring. To get sharp pictures at this magification you need longer shutter speeds, at least 1/2 sec, longer is better, which is what I did. 1.3 seconds, this allows the camera to stop vibrating and get a sharp image. Almost all SLRs act this way, with few exceptions, ( I said this to placate those who believe Their Wonder Type will not vibrate this way.) Lastly, you must have a steady tripod. Period. I recommend this as your second piece of equipment to buy. Period. A steady camera will maximize the lens' taking ability, an unsteady mount reduces the worlds sharpest lens to at best, soft.
Hunt for that macro lens, and if the photojourney takes too long, get a set of close-up filters and mount them on your lens. I used a Nikon 135 with a +1 filter as my butterfly outfit for years. And it never let me down. Review the last blog with the cell phone and close-up lens.

Quik photonote: Name brand macro lenses are rather pricey (Nikon calls theirs Micro) and come in different focal lengths which cost more as the lenses get longer. There are some third party brands which are substantially less. Mine is an Elicar, and on the web it has a good reputation. The next route is to buy a zoom lens with a "macro" feature. This is usually 1:4, at best a close-up lens, but it will make a nice picture, my 'macro' zoom lens works fine, it just weighs a metric ton. But that weight steadies the shot. My cake, eat it too.