Cheap Macro Lens Fun! Chinese, Thistles, and Mio's OH MY!

[Teamonger]

This little 15 dollar clip on macro lens is one of the best purchases I ever made. The pictures are far from perfect but they are pretty damn good and oh so fun to take! Here is my current crew in all their itty bitty glory.

My new Chinese brood of grand babies are getting big so quickly. They are very uncooperative at picture time perfering to climb the camera rather then stay still for even a second for me to snap a picture.

I am in absolute love with my new Thistles. They are such buff little spiky balls of adorable awesome!

And lastly the little dust motes called Miomantis. It was exciting to watch these little guys wrestling fruitflies that where pretty much the same size as them.

 

[Ocelotbren]

I bought a clip on lens as well recently and it is a lot of fun, but I also struggled with the mantid just climbing on the camera too haha.  Lots of pictures of their thorax from below by accident.    Getting pictures and video while they're distracted mid-meal is a lot easier.

 

[roadglide16]

Nice shots.

 

[CosbyArt]

@Teamonger Great glad you got one of the macro lenses, they are a lot of fun to get photos of mantids. My wife had a 3-in-1 set she got and left in a junk drawer, and I made off with them.

It all comes down to stabilization in macro photos, as even the tiniest vibration/shake can make huge changes at the macro level. If you can mount your camera (I have a iPhone $3 tripod gripper that works perfect on my tripod) it will allow your camera to focus much clearer than hand held shots. When I mount my iPhone in a tripod (with my clamp on "macro" lens) I can get photos that comes close to my old Nikon DSLR in overall focus. I find the $1 shutter release cable for my iPhone helps clear the photos too as I don't touch the camera at all to take a photo - so even less vibration.

I also got a "microscope" clip on attachment with a light and focus ring ($14 on eBay), but it gets so up-close it is worthless on mantid photos unless I want to see their compound eyes or something lol.

Your Thistles are really lovely, and so tiny. Thanks for sharing.

 

[roadglide16]

I find the $1 shutter release cable for my iPhone helps clear the photos too as I don't touch the camera at all to take a photo - so even less vibration.

Headphone volume button also acts like a shutter release on iPhones (unless you have a iPhone 7 with no earphone jack).  

At work if I only have my iPhone, I have used a magnifying glass and a rubber band to hold the handle in place works for me getting up close.  You can adjust focus by adding cardboard or markers as spacers across the handle to move the lens further away.

 

[Serle]

@Teamonger  f/m pics , I'll not do my  photos just send then to you  to photo and return.    Those Mio's are fantastic... S

 

[CosbyArt]

Headphone volume button also acts like a shutter release on iPhones (unless you have a iPhone 7 with no earphone jack).  

At work if I only have my iPhone, I have used a magnifying glass and a rubber band to hold the handle in place works for me getting up close.  You can adjust focus by adding cardboard or markers as spacers across the handle to move the lens further away.

Great to hear your tricks, nah no iPhone 7 I bought a older one just for the HD video to capture molts and such with. I forgot about the headphone volume, and the magnifying glass setup sounds interesting.