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.

358: Cabbage Leaf Network

Settings: f/2.8, 1/10, ISO 800, 50mm Pentacon M42, 20mm extension. JPEG straight from camera.

350: Misted Floret

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 51mm extension, 1/4 flash (bounced,) tripod.

339: Ring Spine

Settings: f/10 (approx,) 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 9mm extension, 1/4 flash (bounced,) black velvet, cable release, tripod. Slight curves and colour adjustment, crop to 16:9.

337: Future Compost

Settings: f/8, 1s, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 17mm extension, tungsten light, cable release, tripod.

326: Berries, Frost & Leaves

Settings: f/11, 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44M M42, 21mm extension, 1/4 flash (bounced.)

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.

322: Oak Leaf Channels

From a bunch of half-dried oak leaves, I chose this one because of its varied blotchy patterns. It was then taped to a lamp and copied slide-style.
It was focused to be sharp in the centre, but its general unevenness caused a great deal of softness in areas that fell outside the [thin] field of focus. Note the top corners in particular. I don't mind this, I was expecting it anyway.
It's rather topological, almost like a false-colour aerial view of a stream or a network of highways - and in a way, it is directly analogous, the veins once being transporters of water and nutrients within the organism.

Settings: f/8, 1/13, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 19mm extension, fluorescent lamp, tripod. Levels adjustment, slight sharpen and crop.

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.

314: Green Dome Matrix

The rubber keyboard dome: A nice example of cost-cutting industrial design. Glued directly to the membrane, these things not only save weight, cost and complexity over older individually-switched designs, but are also quieter to press.
I'm even using examples of these as I type this post...

Cheap rubbish! Where is my good old clicky keyboard!?

Settings: f/4, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 33mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod. White balance, colour & levels adjustments, slight cropping.

303: Leaf Crinkles

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 25mm extension, 1/4 flash, foil reflector, tripod.

302: Optical Occlusion

Settings: f/5.6, 1/2, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 51mm extension, fluorescent lamp on white card (behind subject,) tripod, varimagni finder.

299: Blueberry Leaves

Settings: f/5.6, 1/80, ISO 200, DA 16-45 (34mm.)

285: Gallowtree Gate Greens

Settings: f/1.4, 1/80, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm.

283: Stilts & Streamers

Settings: f/6.3, 1/200, ISO 200, DA 18-55.

277: Apples on the Tree

Settings: f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 800, 50mm Cosinon M42.

276: Gloopy Apple Web

At first I thought this was some kind of cocoon, but I think it's just a wet spider nest. The dip in the top of this apple seems like as good a place as any to establish a tiny nest / hiding place / gloopy weird mass / etc.

I tried a reversed FA 50mm with this, and it works surprisingly well - with a magnification ratio of about 1:1.5. It's very smooth and sharp, but the focus can't be adjusted, and flare could be a significant problem if turned toward the light. (No hood other than something improvised can be fitted.) The only easy option is to shift the lens body forward by twisting the focus ring so it protrudes past the front element a bit.

f/5.6, 1/2.5, ISO 100, reversed P-FA 50mm with 49-52mm step-up & 52mm-PK adapter, tripod.

267: Yellow Lines

I'm used to a fixed focal length lens, but a fixed focus lens is something I'm just not used to using with an SLR. It takes me back to the days of little plastic 110 and 135 compacts, except with a better viewfinder for starters.

Like the last time, I used electrical tape to fix a lens to the camera... Bad practice! Don't do this at home unless you expect things to fall out now and again.
I really need one of those double threaded M42-M39 step-down rings. Much better than tape.

Settings: f/4.5, 1/320, ISO 100, 50mm Paterson 1:4.5 M39, M42-PK adapter.

263: Blackberry Muddle

Settings: f/5.6, 1/25, ISO 200, 135mm Soligor M42 1:2.8.

261: Ripening Tomatoes

The traffic lights are all on at once here, but they're very slow to change. And they get eaten; those two red examples were picked later in the day.

Settings: f/3 (approx,) 1/200, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42. Some curves and colour adjustment, slight sharpen and crop.