Macro Lens Substitute

A magnification of something really small has always facinated us. If you're into photography you have probably heard of Macro photography. You have probably also encountered the heavy price tags of macro lenses. There are some substitutes to these lenses. The cheapest and most handy of them are Close-up lenses. You simply screw them onto the front of your lens and this takes your focal distance down, meaning you can get much closer to the subject and still focus correctly. There is also a magnification factor of these lenses and the numbers to look out for is a number called dioptri. standard is from +2 to +10 dioptri. +4 is about as high as I go, with a 150mm lens. Any higher and there is absolutely no sharpness left due to heavy light distortion. You can overcome a set of three at ebay for around $15

Pros: Cheap, lightweight, no light loss, fun to play around with, combineable, often comes in a set of three.

Cons: Different filter ring-size for different lenses, not that sharp

The above picture was taken with a dioptri of +4 and a focal length of  70mm, The object were 15mm in size