Taking nice close-ups w/o the $1000 camera. Mag glass method.

[RhodeIslandReef]

I have a decent camera for taking pictures of my tank. A kodak easyshare 5 megapixel camera. It takes fairly decent pictures of the whole tank or individual corals from 1-2 feet away. But when I wanted to take really close ups, they just weren't coming out clear.

A couple years back I came across a cheap magnifying glass while looking through a draw for superglue. I decided to give it a shot. I set the camera up on a tripod, set it to macro mode, and took some shots through the magnifying glass. Couldn't believe how well it worked.

The magnifying glass I used has two different magnifications. The real thick part takes the really close up shots.

Here are some shots taken through a magnifying glass.

 

[gregr]

You got some really nice and sharp results there. Great tip

 

[ept04]

awesome tips....I gotta try that

 

[RhodeIslandReef]

If anyone tries this and gets some good pics, please post them. Here are a couple more that I took.

1/2" of Nepthia

An anemone.

Hairy Mushroom

 

[melev]

I don't see any pictures.

 

[Dollarbill]

I dont see them either?

 

[RhodeIslandReef]

Not sure why the pictures aren't showing up for you. They are hosted on my own server. Maybe certain browsers don't read the

 

[gregr]

They've always shown up fine for me- with internet explorer.

 

[janderson8]

I have the new IE and I am not able to see them!!!

 

[21Reefman]

i see nothing with IE

 

[melev]

You are linking everything from Nano-reef.com, and odds are they don't support cross linking. The reason you can see them is because you already viewed them and they are still in the browser's cache folder.

Or perhaps we have to be logged into nano-reef.com to get permission to view the images. Anyway, here are the links, in case it works this way:

http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/501/medium/20611100_2895sml.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/503/20611100_2870sml.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/501/medium/20611100_2881sml.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/501/100_4045.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/501/100_4036.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/501/100_4089.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/500/closeric.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/500/closebirdnest.jpg

http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/501/100_2905.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/503/100_2908.jpg
http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/501/100_2874.jpg

 

[RhodeIslandReef]

That must have been the issue, my bad. I usually have them hosted in my server space but must have been tried to take a short cut. This should work.

Majano Anemone

Hairy Mushroom

RPE

FrogSpawn

Nepthia

An Anemone

Zoos

Ricordia

 

[RhodeIslandReef]

Birdsnest

 

[dime079]

nice shots! is that one of the cheap black handle magnifying glass w/ different strengths on either side? hmm i only have a 3.2 mp camera and cant take closeup shots for crap, ill have to try this. good idea!

 

[RhodeIslandReef]

lol very cheap magnifying glass. I guess if I kicked up for a better one I might get better pictures

 

[Covey]

Good Tip!

$99 POS Aiptek camera and $4 mag glass=decent macro

Thanks

 

[RobbyG]

Ok I tried this and it don't work!!!!
Yep I was surprised also, I put a nice 10x magnifying glass near the Tank and when I look through it with my eyes everything is Magnified as expected. I then put My Fuji F30 Camera up to the Magnifier and set the camera on Macro and what I see through the Camera LCD is a slightly SMALLER image than NORMAL, as if the Magnifying glass was not even there !!!!

I am baffled, it seems like the Camera somehow refocuses the image taking into account the Magnifying glass. I tried all sorts of varying distances and focus changes. The only thing that made even the slightest difference is putting the Camera on Full Zoom Mode while in Macro, this enlarged the image to the same as the Camera in Normal mode Macro.

In all cases I got zero returns on taking a picture through a magnifying glass, is there something I should be doing that I am missing?

 

[Snausages01]

Mag glass with Cannon S200:

D-50:

 

[ADA33]

That is kool I am going to try it this weekend

 

[RobbyG]

Ok but someone explain why on my camera it demagnify's the image?