Up Close and Personal: Playing with Digital Concepts Macro Filter Set

Chanukah came early this year, as a gift from my Sister and Brother-in-law showed up a few days ago. Sure, I could have been an adult about it and waited for the holiday, but what fun would that be? They bought me two items off my wishlist, the Digital Concepts 1 2 4 10 Close-Up Macro Filter Set and a remote shutter release, both for my relatively new EOS T3i.

I'm quite impressed with both items. The closeup filter (basically, magnifying glasses) Polaroid branded item, and not some off brand product. The lenses look solid to me, and the case is impressive too; not some after thought cheapy item you might expect.

There's not much to the shutter release, but it worked perfectly out of the box with the camera.

I had the new toys, but I didn't have any idea what I wanted to photograph. Then it occurred to me, I may have just the right set of items from our recent trip. Whenever I travel, I usually pick up various somewhat interesting pebbles from where I've been. I've been doing this for years, and have (a) never taken the time to label anything and (b) never really found a use for the rocks. But, as souvenirs go, a rock from the top of Table Mountain or Robben Island seems precious to me.

They're small and I have new close-up equipment - I thought they'd be a great fit. Alas, I'm totally underwhelmed by how the photos turned out. Though, I blame that not on the new equipment but on my poor composition skills. Still, in the interest of sharing at least some results, here they are.

With close up lenses like these, very narrow depth of field is to be expected. So, I cranked down the aperture as far as I could, and used my new shutter release to trigger the camera. that way, I would reduce the chances of camera shake.

One other little tidbit: the cork in the photos was one that I found at the Cape of Good Hope. If you can't find a message in a bottle, you can at least find the cork that belonged to it (or, to the people who were drinking on the beach last night).

Like I said: I'm really impressed by the macro filters. Definitely a lot more polished product than one might expect for the relatively low close.