As Promised

So I had a little time to day to do a couple of detail shots.

On blue

definitely opaque

On black or pretty close to it

also opaque

and on white

clearly visible

The first two don't really show the dimension of this ink but on white the camera could really pick it out.  The trenches in the centre of the letters are caused by too much pressure on my part.  Like I said these need further experiments but I love the results so far.

A little cheating lesson (and please don't judge my dust)

Do you have an SLR, digital or film it really doesn't matter?  Did you ever lust over a really expensive macro lens?  I have but there is no way I can justify it.  I mean really, to do detail shots of scrapbook pages?  That sounds lame.  Then one day I confessed my desire to my husband who started asking me a whole lot of questions.

What do you want it for?  How often do you expect to use it . . . Pretty practical stuff really.  And when he was done he said, "well I think I know what would solve your problem."  The he went on the internet and showed me a screw on macro lens.  Not a full lens like the pros use but a $20 device.

OK, for $20 I'll trust him.  Well maybe I trust him anyways. lol  So I ordered it and this little bag has become my friend.

Inside the bag is a small adapter lens which turns a standard kit lens into a macro lens and it looks like this

It has a lens cap too.

Those itty-bitty threads on the top screw onto the camera lens.  I didn't even know there were threads inside the lens until he showed them to me.

I know hard to see but just to the left of the 52 mm they are visible

 And what do you need to know to get yourself one of these?  As far as I know, just the inner diameter of the lens that you wish to use.  In my case 52mm.  If you look, you will see different size options on Opteka's website .  The inner diameter (or ID as it is sometimes referred to) should be on your lens or in its documentation somewhere.

Now before you run off excited there is a price to pay for the price.  First off, you need to be able to manually focus your camera.  Second, you will need a lot of light to get good results. (That's what is wrong with my first two pictures - not enough light) Thirdly, and most importantly, you need to be able to live with a lot of  distortion around the edges.


This is a marginally cropped picture of the same pen on white.

There's really only one small area that isn't distorted and in focus.  Definitely this is a case of you get what you pay for but, there is no way with my normal lens I could have shown you the dimension of the dried ink.


Have a great weekend
~ Carolyn