My Blue Heaven

Even though the storms bypassed our house on Sunday night, we did manage to lose electricity for awhile and the skies did look amazing.

This was taken from our back yard.

We also had a nice sunset but I was just a little late getting to a place that had a somewhat clear view of the western sky. Wish I would have made it about 20 minutes earlier.

Anyone who has done any macro photography knows that it can be an expensive part of an already expensive hobby or profession. If you are a serious macro photographer you most likely have any number of dedicated macro lenses ranging in different focal lengths. Even if you are not a serious macro photographer you might have one or two dedicated macros. The problem with these lenses are that they tend to be quite expensive. There is a good reason for that. Even though most macro lenses tend to make decent portrait lenses, for the most part they are a single purpose lens. The other thing that can add to the cost of one is that the optics tend to be of a very high quality.

There are alternatives to the high cost of dedicated macro lenses though. I am only going to cover one at this time. It is the Raynox DCR-250 Super Macro Lens. This device attaches to the end of a non-macro lens and increases the magnification of that lens. Since it isn’t doing anything to the lens, in camera metering and auto focus still work normally. It provides very sharp images, especially if you camera is on a tripod. The other big plus for this lens is that it works on both DSLR and point & shoot cameras as long as the lens adapter will fit the threads on your existing lens.

There are some limitations though. The working distance of the lens that it is attached to shrinks down to almost nothing. This shot of the dice was taken from a mere couple inches away. While this isn’t a problem for objects like these dice, if you are going to try and take images of bugs, this might not be the right choice of macro devices. I have seen some images of bugs taken with it and while they are amazing shots, I was never able to get even a poor shot.

When all is said and done though, if you are looking for something that will allow you to take basic macro shots with your existing equipment, this might be the right choice for you. You can pick these up for about $60 at most online camera retailers. Pick one up and play with it. If it isn’t right for you it can always be unloaded on ebay, there seems to be a decent demand for them there.

Technorati Tags: Raynox, DCR-250, Macro, Photography

Guess I should have checked to see if I can add pictures as well.