When we were up in Death Valley last month, I discovered that my little point-n-shoot digital camera was WAY cooler than I thought. By accident, I was fooling around in the settings, and discovered that for the last year, I'd been operating with the 'digital zoom' turned off.
No wonder I couldn't really get all that close to things. I was only working with the optical zoom.
The next thing I know, a whole new world of CLOSE UP stuff is opened up to me.

And it didn't hurt that we had about a zillion and twenty two insects on the door of our room every night, just TRYING to get in. Oh yeah. Take this flash, you pesky critters. And don't you dare think about flying into my hair, lest you perish for certain.

Behold, my first EVER Praying Mantis in the wild.