Macro filters on NON fixed focal length lenses?

12 years 10 months ago #4512 by Overread
I found these macro filters and was wondering can these be used on non fixed focal length lenses? Everything that I found says or suggest using these with a fixed lens. Can these be used other wise?

Cheers and thanks!


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12 years 10 months ago #4521 by jrjohns2
Should be usable on any lens as long as it fits the mount, its just a convex lens in a filter mount, so dont expect much. Youll get the magnification but those filters are usually pretty low quality, If youre looking for a cheap macro look for old manual focus lenses with no electronic hookups, I got a super sharp one from keh.com for 50$. You can also get a reversing ring for 15$ or so, the only downside to those is completely manual exposures


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12 years 10 months ago #5030 by Overread

jrjohns2 wrote: Should be usable on any lens as long as it fits the mount, its just a convex lens in a filter mount, so dont expect much. Youll get the magnification but those filters are usually pretty low quality, If youre looking for a cheap macro look for old manual focus lenses with no electronic hookups, I got a super sharp one from keh.com for 50$. You can also get a reversing ring for 15$ or so, the only downside to those is completely manual exposures


Thanks for the reply. So if manual exposure, how are you metering for correct exposure? Do you have a secondary light meter?


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12 years 10 months ago #5041 by Screamin Scott
You can use the LCD/Histogram to fine tune your exposure. Sunny 16 will get you in the ball park. Handheld meters are OK for general photography but are not very good for macro..I shoot totaly manual for all of my macro (I have 4 different "true" macro lenses-sample photos in my gallery). It's not hard to do. I moderate a photo group on Flickr devoted to using the older MF lenses on Nikon DSLRs. As for the "macro filters", there are two different types. The cheap ones you see in sets of +1,+2,+4 are single element (called diopter) & aren't very good,only sharp in the center & lots of CA...There are others that have 2 elements (dual diopter) that give much better results but still not as good or convient as a true macro lens. Canon makes a dual diopter lens (500D) that is really nice & comes in assorted filter sizes. Nikon has the 3T,4T,5T, & 6T. They can only be found used as Nikon no longer makes tehm the 3T/4T are 523mm & the 5T/6T are 62mm...There are others (Olympus Mcon-35 is another) so be careful to make sure you get the dual diopter version if you go this route.

Scott Ditzel Photography

www.flickr.com/photos/screaminscott/

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