Maple blossom macro — Maple Blossom: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, April 2026 — The Maple Blossoms in our yard are just beginning to open. I brought these inside to move them along a bit faster, not knowing really if they would open in the house. They did, and that gave me a chance for some macro shots. The fun of macro is that it allows us to see and appreciate the world that is just too small for our naked eyes. It opens a whole new layer of the universe, which is remarkably the same as the layer we see, and remarkably unique at the same time. It is this recursive nature of reality that has always fascinated me. The universe appears to be equally as beautiful no matter how close, or how far, you look. For this shot I set up a low table in the kitchen where the sun comes through the sliding deck doors and hung a blanket over a chair as a backdrop. I mounted my Sony a6700 and Sigma 16-300 Contemporary on the tiny carbon fiber table top tripod which I carry for macro work when out on a photoprowl, and added the Sigma achromatic close up attachment (designed for the older 18-300mm lens) to get even closer than the already close focusing 16-300 contemporary. So close that I kept getting pollen on the lens. 🙂 I hooked the camera up to the Sony app on my phone so I could control the camera without touching it. And then I just played around for an hour or more, looking for the right angles to show off the beauty. I used Aperture Program to increase depth of field and movable spot focus to select the focus point I wanted (both of which I could do on my phone). This shot is at f32 and 1/40th at ISO 1250 (-0.7EV to hold the highlights). Auto focus.