New close-up filter

April 23, 2013

After I had a little incident with my memory card on Sunday, I went online and searched for one on the F64 Studio website. In my opinion, they are the best online/offline camera and equipment store in Romania.

Anyway, after I added my desired memory card to the cart, I started wandering around the website. This is how from a total of 70 Lei I raised it to about 185 as I tweeted Sunday evening ... You know the feeling ...

The most important thing I bought was a Hoya Close-Up 52mm +4 Filter, a budget option for macro photography. I can't afford a specialized macro lens, so I decided to give the filters a try.

Today my package came and I was very excited. I started shooting early in the morning so I could get used to it.

At first I was a little bit disappointed because I didn't get what I hoped for. The close-up wasn't as considerable as I hoped and the focus on the subject ... OH MY GOD! But it's not all bad news. As I experimented more, I figured out how to bring the subject into focus ( sometimes using a bigger F number ) and things started to look better. For example, in the picture on the right, the core of the flower is not focused at all. The petals are in focus, but due to small focus area the filter forces, the core of the flower is absolutely blurred.

Nevertheless, I didn't give up and continued experimenting. I think I did a pretty good job with the rest of the photographs. They are posted down here, on the Facebook page, and, of course, in the PORTFOLIO section under MACRO. The first one I think is the best. What do you think about them? You can leave me a comment at the bottom of the page.

To conclude, I think that in a budget smaller than 100 Lei you can buy a decent filter that can help you get started on macro photography. I think I will buy a second one in order to combine them and see the results. I will post it here of course.

Bye for now,

Ovidiu Ocnaru