NKM photos: wildlife

I'm finally getting around to processing some of my first pictures taken with the new Extension Tubes I got for my Anniversary. I took my camera out on one of my daily walks around the building after lunch using my Tamron 70-300 Zoom Macro lens (love that one). Ok, this is not really that unusual, since I always take my camera, because the two times I didn't, I missed out on some great shots.
Now, there isn't that much to see along the walkway if you do it every day, except for the occasional squirrel and bird, which I've captured pretty well I think.
So, I was trying to find something really small to try it out and the only thing I could find was this spider! Ok, fine, not the cutest subject around, but it'll have to do--I had get back to work, you know?
I was amazed at how close I got without getting too close--does that make sense? Of course it does :D
Anyway, here is one of the shots that I think came out amazing, except for the up-close creepiness.

If you zoom in, you can see three sets of eyes; if you can get past the fuzzy legs up close :)

Lately, I started taking my camera on my walk around the office building after lunch, mainly to get more familiar with the new camera and the new lens, a Tamron AF 70-300 Macro Zoom (sweet). So, every day I try to look for something new and interesting to shoot. Yesterday, as soon as I stepped outside, I heard birds chirping nearby and started to look around. Sure enough, one bird (don't ask what kind because I have no idea, decided to take a break right in front of us. I think he (she?) was talking to another bird and didn't want to chirp and fly :)

I really like this lens. It does a fantastic job of capturing the subject and the resulting DOF and bokeh are great! I used to have to do some creative adjusting in Photoshop to get the DOF even close to what I'm getting now, which saves me a ton of post-processing time. That, combined with some really cool (and extremely useful) actions I got from the Pioneer Woman and CoffeeShop sites, gives me more time to work on the fun stuff, like adding textures.