I’m fascinated with shooting tiny things - I guess that might explain my penchant for shooting objects & trinkets that I can put on my desktop. I would love to shoot even smaller items, but unfortunately, I don’t have a macro lens.

It’s a good good thing then that Brian Larter wrote a little post recently on reverse lens photography. What in the world is that? In a nutshell, it involves mounting a lens backward on your camera (or on another lens) to get a makeshift macro lens.

He discusses methods of mounting a lens backward, magnification levels, and other things, but the one topic I was really thankful he tackled was controlling the aperture on your lens. No, this isn’t a problem if you’ve got a lens with manual aperture control on it - but it is when you’re dealing with EF or EF-S lenses. If you’re reading this Brian, you’re a lifesaver.

After reading this, it took me all of two seconds to whip out my camera and try this out. One of my first shots was this abstract piece. Can you tell what it is?

I moved on to other items, and soon decided to play with my makeshift macro lens in my makeshift studio. Several hours and even more shots later, I ended up with the shots of tiny things in my gallery.

So, what do you think?

Tags: macro photography, reverse lens photography, tiny things, DIY, Brian Larter, brianlarter.com

I don’t own one, but I’m a fan of Timbuk2’s line of bags. I toyed with the idea of building my own Timbuk2 bag a few years ago when I got my laptop, but I ended up with something I could get locally.

Like I said though, I’m still a fan, so when I received an invitation to the launch of their Blogger Bag, I braved the Friday night Makati traffic and trooped over to Outback in Glorietta 4.

Did I finally get a Timbuk2 bag? Not really - I took home a goodie bag, but that doesn’t count. I could have won the one they raffled off, but nope - that bag went to Anton.

So what did I get from the launch? Read on…

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See more photography-related strips by Aaron Johnson at www.whattheduck.net

The first photography.101 lesson we had was that it’s not about the camera, but we also mentioned the importance of good tools. This is why we’d like to help you pick a better camera.

You see, it’s way too easy to get robbed at the camera store. Yes, camera prices may be dropping, but it’s still too easy to get suckered into buying a camera for certain features that you don’t really want - or need.

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One of the goals I had when I started drivebyshooter.net was to turn it into a photography resource. Yes, I wanted my gallery on it - but I also wanted to share what I’ve learned about the craft. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten very far on either count. This post, as well as others, I hope, will remedy that.

Yup, I’ve got a new category: photography.101.

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I haven’t been posting much here on drivebyshooter.net, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. The opposite, in fact, is quite true - I’ve been too busy to really pay much attention to my own site. Sad, right? It’s ok though - like I mentioned before, I’ve got a lot of things on my plate.

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Yes, you can probably do that on your computer - but do you think you can do that on your phone?

Thirteen year-old Morgan Pozgar of Claysburg, Pennsylvania can.

Last Saturday, she bested over 200 other competitors and won $25,000 at the LG National Texting championship by spelling supercalifragilisticexpialidocious on that phone you see her holding now.

I wonder how she would fare compared to our country’s top texters. Yes, the QWERTY thumbboard helps, but her speed isn’t the most impressive part. She says she sends more than 8,000 text messages a month. That is definitely more than the average here in the supposed “texting capital of the world.”

What she should do now is use the $25,000 to cover her phone bills.

Tags: LG National Texting championship, Morgan Pozgar, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, texting

Going by more than one name is tricky - I should know. Some of you know me as Luis - that’s my real name. The thing is, most of you reading this probably know me as Elber. Don’t worry - that really is my name too. It’s my nickname, yes, but it’s still a name I go by.

Still some of you know me only by my handles: drivebyshooter, and for older followers of my blog (if there are any), driver ng bayan - so the names Luis and Elber don’t really mean anything to you. Also, handles don’t really count, right?

At this point, most of you are probably wondering what I’m trying to get at. Honestly, I’m not really sure either. So if it would please you, indulge me for a few moments.

I want to drop one of my names - at least while blogging. Why? I feel like it. As you read this, I’m sure it will be obvious which name I’m keeping.

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I installed Performancing Metrics a few minutes ago and I can’t wait to see my stats. Yes, there are other stat trackers out there, but pmetrics is supposed to have a little something extra. If the chart off the right is any indication, it has a lot of tricks up its sleeve.

Yes, I’ve got other trackers installed here, but one thing I want to know is what pages people visit. Specifically, I want to be able to track any given visitor’s movement on my blog. Say, for example, a visitor visits 37 different pages, I’d like to know which 37 pages those are. I don’t want just the entry and exit pages - I want every page. This is supposed to give me that.

Why would I want to know that? I’d rather not explain. Let it suffice that this is supposed to give users “an unrivaled per visitor level of detail.”

This then begs the question: does it live up to its claim? On another note, I mentioned (in my title too) that Performancing Metrics is available for free. Is it really free?

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