Malachite up close

Another attempt at serious macro.

This is a 'blob' of malachite (copper ore), consisting of hundreds of single crystals. The specimen is all of 5mm across and 3mm deep (i.e. front to back). When you get so close, unless the thing you are photographing is a plane surface you cannot get everything in focus. If it is or was alive, you can settle on the eyes. With so many 'hair crystals', you have to settle for what comes.

The crystals came from a mine tip in the Black Forest. If you like this sort of thing, I have many more mineral specimens, and look forward to more practice with the macro lens. This one was @ 3 : 1 magnification. That means that on the actual sensor of my Canon 7D, the image was 3 times its actual size. Of course, you can blow it up on the screen even more!