Yes, I've fallen deeper and deeper into my hobby and started to buy and buy accessories for my camera. This time round it is a macro lens set bought second hand online. It's so cool to finally get my hands on not one, not two, but three macro lens at the same time. Why? Because macro lens could stack. If you stack them together you can get much larger images! Here's some images to prove it to you.
All images are original uncropped but resized versions.
Original Sony H1 Wide Angle Macro
First, this is taken with the H1 native wide angle macro function, my Jia Jia herbal tea is almost touching the lens and the camera is blocking so much light that I have to compensate with a longer exposure hence burning the brighter edges.
Kenko Macro lens No. 3 with 1.7x Teleconvertor, Telephoto Macro
I can even stack my Sony 1.7x Teleconvertor lens with the macro lens to obtain this image. It's about the same size as the wide angle macro but without the shadow problem. Things are looking promising from here.
Kenko Macro lens No. 1, 2 and 3 stacked with 1.7x Teleconvertor, Telephoto Macro
Now this shot is taken with 3 macro lens stacked together. Voila! An even larger image. Note, the sides are blurry because of the shallow depth of field and that the can is curved.
Kenko Macro lens No. 3, Telephoto Macro
Now if I removed the teleconvertor, I could obtain this with my No.3 lens, which is about the same as stacking 3 macro lens with my teleconvertor. For some reasons, the minimum focus distance is further with the teleconvertor. Something I did not expect.
Kenko Macro lens No. 1, 2 and 3 stacked, Telephoto Macro
This would be the largest magnification I could get with the lens stacked together. Why don't you take out a can of Jia Jia herbal tea and compare for yourself.
Now, I had only played with my macro lens for like, 20 minutes before I started with this and there is much for me to learn with my new toys. (Yippee!) And I did some simple estimation to what the macro lens could do. Here's a quick summary of my findings on the length captured in the images. I repeat, all values are estimated using my Jia Jia can drink and a 15cm plastic ruler.
- Original wide angle macro: 4.5cm
- Lens 3 telephoto macro: 2.9cm
- Lens 1, 2 & 3 telephoto macro: 1.8cm
Here are the seller's images of the macro lens set.
3 Lens with a box for only $35
3 Lens stacked together
Now for the technical details. My guess for this set of Kenko macro lens set No. 1, 2 and 3 should have a diopter rating of +1, +2 and +3 respectively. In other words, light will focus at 1m, 0.5m and 0.33m respectively (see the pattern?). When you stack them, the combination will be effectively +6 (or focus at 0.167m). It's a single element macro lens compared to my dream macro lens Canon 250D (+4) and Sony M3358 (+3) which are both 2 elements in 2 groups type of lens (or 2 glasses manufactured into one lens set). That would explain the price difference and perhaps why the kenko lens set is not really compatible with the teleconvertor lens.
Which means I might still be tempted to get the Canon 250D or Sony M3358 if the price is right and sell off the kenko set (or maybe just the +1 and +2 lens) in the future but for now, I will have a lot of fun with it. The Canon and Sony lens would most likely be sharper than the Kenko one and it comes with a leather pouch (for Sony) and protective case too. I'll look forward to the day when I bring my Kenko out for some shooting to see the image quality out of it. Afterall, the quality is determined by the worst lens in the camera just like a chain is only as strong as it's weakest joint.
I'm so excited!
Note to self, Flickr is 92% full but the month is only 84% passed.
singapore kenko macro photoblog dsc h1
Posts
