Macro lens for Canon Eos 450d

[Jsysco]

I have the same camera and the same two lenses and until recently had some nice results with a clip on diopter lens designed for bridge cameras.

I tried the cheap 55mm close up "filter" sets available on ebay but found that there was quite a lot of distortion and the image quality wasn't great. The best results I had were with a much smaller diameter close up "filter", the Raynox DCR-250 which I bought previously for use on a Panasonic TZ3. The lens comes with a clip on mount so it fits a range of filter screw sizes and fits nicely on the 58mm of the 18-55 and 55-250 lenses.

Being much smaller, there is vignetting at the wider focal lengths, but above about 30mm on the 18-55 and above about 80mm on the 55-250 it's fine as long as set focus manually to infinity.

With the clip on lens you're limited to a focal distance of about 10cm from the subject to the front of the lens, and you change the magnification by zooming in or out on the EF-S lens. I generally focused by moving back and forth. It takes a bit of getting used to but works quite well once you know how.

The best bit being that the cheapy close up filters can be picked up for around ₤10-15, and the raynox is about ₤35 if I remember rightly.

Having said that, I recently upgraded to a canon 100mm f/2.8 and although I miss the high magnification (I think at 250mm, the raynox achieved about 3:1), I have much greater flexibilty and pin sharpness.

Hope that helps

Ross

[killwilly]

You could also try a lens reversal adapter, which are quite cheap and work very well with either the 18-55 or 50mm, try that first before spending lots of money.