The Saturday after my first ill-fated foray to the tulip fields I made a 2nd ill-fated trip back.
This time, though, my main mission was to take macros with my own 100mm macro lens and compare them with the upgraded “L” glass 100mm macro lens I’d tried out on the previous Thursday.
Pictures in this article are taken with my own lens. The ones in the previous article are taken with the newer 100mm “L” glass macro I don’t own… yet. 
After the 2nd attempt debacle just completed, I’m feeling the call of the wild. I gotta get back out to parts unknown as far from humanity as possible. That’s where I belong. I function better there.
But I do want that new piece of glass. I like it, but suffer from a common photographer ailment… I don’t wanna pay the $1,000+ for a lens close to one I already got.
My photo equipment supplier sees it different, though. He already ordered it and called to tell me it is in. LOL!!!
On a lark, I’d made the 2nd tulip trip two days after the first. Saturday morning arrived partly cloudy and calm as a mirrored lake. Perfect for outdoor macro photography! So I grabbed my camera bag just after a cloudy sunrise and off I sped, energized.
But as fate would have it, another day of amusing embarrassment was to be my fate.
The first sign of trouble was right after I’d photographed the very same flower I’d photographed previously with the other new lens two days earlier. Both were 1:1 macro! I flung my bag over my shoulder to go elsewhere and out came a menagerie of miscellaneous camera paraphernalia from a pocket I’d failed to zip.
Filters, a blow brush and a microphone flew to the ground… more embarrassing than damaging. I glanced around to see if folks noticed that “the pro” made a boo-boo.
Then I moved on to other embarrassments that would deflate the ego of lesser photographers, but not me!
There had been rain. The fields were drying. Only thing left were a few big mud puddles. With the deft skill of an ugly duckling, I managed to roll my camera bag right into the middle of the largest puddle within a quarter mile while pursuing a tulip blossom!
At least this time I had all the zippers zipped!
But the coup d’état was when I tried to remove the bulky MT-24 macro flash to switch lenses and take other types of pictures. It was stuck! It was impossible to remove! The MT-24 only fits the old 100mm lens. If you can’t take off the flash, you basically can’t work at all.
There I was… left hanging like a disappointed lover!
I decided the better part of valor was to give it up and run for the hills. So I did.
Final analysis… the newer 100mm “L” glass is better than the 100mm I already got. Dang!! I hate when that happens.
