Stigma

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The stigma of a daffodil.
It seems that I need to clean my sensor rather urgently. Macro at high magnifications with small aperture settings tends to highlight sensor dust very badly, because the light entering the lens acts like a point source, casting sharp shadows, and accentuating the dust on the sensor.
I had to go a bit mad with the healing brush to make this presentable!
This is the same lens setup tht I used for the LED photo a few days ago. After commenting that the lens was possibly older than me, I looked it up, and it turns out that the FD lenses have a simple date code stamped on the back. This lens is from 1991, so quite a bit younger than I thought it was, although I suppose that's still ancient history in the high turnover photo world!

Diodes, Light Emitting, Magnified

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LEDs are amazing things. So are macro lenses.
I want to do a bit more extreme macro work again soon, so I'll be revisiting this setup - I used an old Canon FD macro lens, which is probably at least as old as me, mounted on a cobbled together bellows arrangement. I don't think it's done too badly, but I think I can get more out of it with a bit more work, and frankly practise!
It's a long time since I messed about with serious macro work. Somewhere buried in a box, I have a macro focusing rail, which I need to dig out again.
My geared head is also something of a sick puppy, with extremely stiff spots in the movement, so I need to have a proper look at that too.

The LEDs in the photo are 5mm (less than 1/4") across.