Pollen

I rarely use my macro lens outside of the house, probably as its 30mm focal length is duplicated by the smaller and slightly faster sigma lens. I'm not sure which lens is officially sharper, but I've found the sigma to be extremely capable. Having said that, the Sony macro lens for E-mount is very sharp, and has a minimum focussing distance of ~1cm - useless for shy animals, but great for plants and food.

Anyway, the above photo is a crop from a handheld shot of a flower (click it for a larger file). I saw the flowers at the side of the road, and wanted to take a photo to show my brother the resolving power of the NEX-7 vs his Galaxy S3. His phone took a great photo, but only when I digitally zoomed in on the flower did we notice a small insect atop the pollen! We struggled to make out the insect with our eyes! 

Pollen

Pollen | NEX-7 & SEL30F35 Macro| 30mm, 1/160s, f/13.0, ISO100, RAW

These lilies really are getting a lot of airtime! They've been going strong for over two weeks now, and thrived during our trip to Hiroshima. There are only two flowers remaining now, as we prune off the stragglers. Anyway, the above-shot is a montage of 1 capture. On the left, the original image, slightly cropped at the sides. The black square denotes the area taken of the right image, which is a 100%, i.e. sensor-level (1:1), crop. I'm quite amazed! The pollen looks like little grains of brown rice, or 玄米 genmai, in Japanese.

I really wasn't expecting to get this level of detail, but I am seriously impressed! Luckily, we don't suffer from hayfever, so we are instead just treated to the welcoming fresh scent of these lilies each time we walk through the door.