A few macro shots without using a macro lense

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A macro lens can be expensive but you can take macro shots without having to buy an expensive macro lens. I used my normal 18mm-55mm lens for these shots. Ebay sells close-up filters (1X, 2X, 4X and a 10X) all in one package for about 20 bucks that you just screw onto your existing lens. It's magnifying glasses, or better yet buy the 3 ring extension for about 10 bucks. With the close-up filters you will be adding extra glass to the camera thus losing some image quality not so with the ring extensions but you won't have auto focus which is no big deal. You can also use your lens backwards to get lots of magnification. Ebay sells the macro reverse adapter for about 5 bucks. Here is a link that discusses the options. Timothy Edberg Photo Tip: Macro Photography Methods Here is a link if you want to make an homemade macro lens. Extreme Macro Photography on a budget by Photocritic

If you are on dial-up and all the pics don't load, right click on the red X and select "show picture".

I captured a few shots with 0.0 aperture until i read the above article and found a way to stop down the lens to whatever aperture i wanted.

The 2 images of the fly was taken with my lens backwards and using the zoom and the manual focus to get the magnification. Having 0.0 aperture there was no depth of field so i took several images and then used software called helicon focus to combine the images. By the way, the fly isn't alive. The other insects are. All the other images was a single shot.




The caterpillers was taken with my lens the right way but with an extension between the lens and camera, still with 0.0 aperture.






The dragonfly was taken the same way using an extension but after learning about stopping down the lens i tested it on this image. It's also cropped.


The rest of the shots is taken with the lens in normal position.

Daddy Long-legs


Water drop after it hit the water


A couple flowers