The Lemon Fool

I've recently been rootling in the garden and have dug up a number of tiny objects (3 to 5mm) that I wanted to have a record of. But how to photograph something so small? I wasn't going to splash out a pile of dosh for a macro lens, and I wouldn't have had a suitable camera to take one even if I had. (Sadly, proper photography and I parted company more than twenty years ago, if I'm honest. Point and shoot man, me. )

The quick and dirty solution was to buy a clip-on macro lens set for my smartphone, which sounds like an appalling idea until you try it. (I gather that a fair bit of Attenborough-level close-up stuff is shot using iPhone lenses these days.) So what the hell, it was down to Mr Amazon for one of these things: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CSJ50HY/. And stuffing heck, it's really rather good for a tenner. Cased in proper aluminium, not plastic, and it does wide angle and fisheye if you juggle the two lenses. Fits any mobile where the centre of the lens is no more than 30mm from the edge. So not a Microsoft Lumia or certain Huaweis, then.

You can, of course, spend £200 on a macro lens set for a mobile, and I expect its depth of field would be better, but I'd have one of these in my christmas stocking any day. Well, I would if I hadn't just bought one.

BJ

I'd think this sort of thing would be absolutely fine if you are not thinking of publishing or printing stuff. I wouldn't think that a more expensive system would improve depth of field either, it is always an issue with macro photography.

John

George I Hibernia farthing, 1723. Still bearing the mud from my veg patch.

(Yes, they were poorly made, with very dodgy milling around the edges.)





Taken with my £100 LG phone. Dished and blurry round the edges, but hey, for ten quid who's arguing?

BJ