364: Blossoming Lemon

Settings: f/11 (approx,) 1/8, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 33mm extension, fluorescent lamp, black velvet, cable release, tripod. Slight tone curve / colour adjustments and crop.

362: Presenting A Cake

Settings: f/11, 1/180, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash (bounced,) white polystyrene, black velvet, tripod. JPEG straight from camera, cropped to 5:4.

355: Domino

Settings: f/1.4, 1/25, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm. Tone curve adjustment, rotated 90° left, slight crop.

343: SXPXXACWPSW

Yeah, exactly. It made some kind of sense if you were there.

Settings: f/1.4, 1/40, ISO 800, P-FA 50mm. White balance, colour and curves adjustments, crop to square.

341: Offshoot Curves

Very late update...
Another of a Jerusalem artichoke - but this is one of the new crop. This one was stored for a couple of days, and its skin now looks slightly shrivelled, while the tips of its branched-off new roots are starting to droop.
The added red tint was a post-processing afterthought, one that I simply considered fitting.

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 45mm extension, 1/4 flash, black velvet, cable release, tripod. Colour and levels adjustments, slight crop.

332: The Speed Selector

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 51mm extension, 1/4 flash, metal bowl, black velvet, tripod.

325: Broccolilies

Flowers are not just for unusual salads - One bite of broccoli (calabrese) contains hundreds of these delicate, tiny green buds.

The anthers on these broccoli flowers look slightly like those of lilies - a big generalisation, but it led conveniently onto the title.

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 51mm extension, 1.4 flash, black velvet, tripod.

320: Confection Racket

I drop the M&Ms and try to trigger the camera at the right: Not easy to do, especially when you consider that all digital cameras have a slight delay between pressing the button and the shutter opening. Okay, DSLRs are pretty damn quick, but the delay is nonetheless there. Out of about fifteen tries, I got two-thirds fairly well timed, but I really could have done with more M&Ms to fill the frame. Like a whole bowl next time!

Set up with a large mirror on a table, black velvet cloth hung over from behind at a slight angle, and a barrier of upended VHS cassettes around the perimeter.

Settings: f/7.1, 1/180, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, mirror, black velvet, tripod. Levels adjustment and crop to vertical 16:9.

319: Twig Corals

Discovered in local woodland on Sunday, this rotten twig sports many tiny, coral-like fungal growths. I knew I wasn't going to get a decently lit and well-considered shot out in the cold woods, so it had to come home; and here we have it.
The twig was about 25mm(1 inch) wide, and measures about 2200px on the full 3888px wide image. This makes it about 13mm wide on the sensor, so the magnification ratio is around 1:2.

Settings: f/9, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 29mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, foil, black velvet, tripod. Slight levels adjustment and very light sharpening.

315: Dustfingers

My fingers were covered in paint dust, and I noticed how the fine detail was so well defined by its covering - almost like an over-sharpened photo. A very sharp lens (a Helios-44M) was great to use here; it shows the fine details very clearly. To get most of the fingers in focus it was set to f/11 (which is roughly near to the supposed
diffraction limit of the Pentax K10D's Sony 10Mp CCD.)

Two versions of one image here: I couldn't decide which way round I prefer it. The landscape version is the original.

Settings: f/11, 1/180, ISO 200, 58mm Helios-44M M42, 18mm extension, 1/4 flash, fluorescent lamp, black velvet, tripod.

301: Bling Extra Galaxies

Settings: f/16, 1/4, ISO 100, EOS D30, 50mm Pentacon M42, 8mm extension, 4x starburst filter, turntable, black velvet, halogen lamp.

300: Tomato-Twig Arrangement

The 300th image so far; Only 65 more until the year is up...

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44M M42, 9mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, black velvet, tripod.

292: Scorpionion

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44M M42, 1/4 flash, white card, black velvet, tripod.

279: Acrylic Diamonds

Settings: f/4, 1/250, ISO 100, EOS D30, 50mm Pentacon M42, 8mm extension, 4x starburst filter, black velvet.

275: Saxophony

Settings: f/1.4, 1/30, ISO 800, P-FA 50mm.

268: Skin, Scored

Settings: f/16, 1/4, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 19mm extension, 1/4 flash, black velvet, tripod. Cropped square.

266: Tea Bubbles

I attached an enlarger lens to the camera with electrical tape to get this shot! Sharpness slightly better than I thought, but not amazing. The composition and foam could have turned out a bit better, but it's an interesting test nonetheless. It was quite difficult to focus the lens, as it only had an aperture ring and I had to move the camera to focus; plus it was f/4.5 wide open, so not a great VF image.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Paterson 1:4.5 M39, 8mm M42 extension tube, 1.4 flash, black velvet, foil reflector, tripod.

260: Coil With Beads

Settings: f/4, 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44M M42, 1/4 flash, foil reflector, black velvet, tripod.

248: Ash Fragments

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 26mm extension, 1/4 flash, white paper, tripod.

242: Match Row

Settings: f/8 (approx,) 1/4, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 51mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, black velvet, tripod.