Canon Close-Up Lens 500D and UV Filter

B

brosen

Member
Hi, I am planning to add to my 24-105mm f/4L and 50mm f/1.2L lenses a close up lens (Canon 500D) to be able to take some Macro Photos

I have already installed in each lens a B+W XS-Pro Digital UV Filter, can I just screw on top of the UV Filter the Close Up Lens ?, or I have to remove it and install the Close Up lens directly to the lens ?

Assuming I have to screw the Close Up lens directly to the lens, can I scree the UV Filter on top of the Close Up lens after ?

On another subject, any experience with this Close Up lenses ?, are they good ?, are they a good option to a full Macro Lens ?, I know it will not be the same, but the size does matter, I am talking about the Canon ones, thanks
 
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Jordan_Sopinsky said:
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/R...ns-Review.aspx

Not certain, but I'd keep the filters on. You'll need a step-up ring for the 50mm; however, 70mm seems to be the minimum focal length. You may need an extension tube instead.
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Thanks a lot for your feedback, but there is something I do not understand, in both Canon user manuals (50mm and 24-105mm lenses), the Close Up lens is there as an option to the lens, it says "the close us lens will enable close up photography, and the magnification will be 0.34x - 0.05x", this is for the 24-105 lens, why if it will not work Canon has it in the User Manual ?, thanks
 
Those are pretty nice lenses but I would rather use extension tubes for macro than close up lenses. Extension tubes will let you focus closer just like close up lenses but there are no additional optics so you won't degrade the image at all.
 
I'm shooting with a nikon close up .2 diopter which is really similar to yours. Put the close up lens on first and the protective uv filter on last as you are more likely to receive a blow to the front of the lens when doing close up.

BTW that close up lens is going to radically alter your dof making it much shallower so you might wanna throw a LOT more light and stop down. (well thats what I do)
 
J Davis said:
I'm shooting with a nikon close up .2 diopter which is really similar to yours. Put the close up lens on first and the protective uv filter on last as you are more likely to receive a blow to the front of the lens when doing close up.

BTW that close up lens is going to radically alter your dof making it much shallower so you might wanna throw a LOT more light and stop down. (well thats what I do)
Click to expand...

Thanks, what do you mean by "receiving a blow to the front of the lens" ?
 
I'm a pretty experienced macro photographer and use a Canon system for macro still photography, although I don't have any experience of these 2 lenses. The Canon 500D is a very good quality +2 diopter achromatic close-up lens. When you add it to any lens it will bring the focus to about 50cm when focused on infinity and then focus closer using the lens' closest focusing. This means that the greater the focal length of the lens, the greater the magnification. It won't provide particularly high magnification on either of the lenses you have and the 500D is normally used on longer focal length lenses. A magnification of 0.34x (~ 1:3 or a third life-size) is not particularly high and many normal lenses can get close to this (I think the 24-105mm does 0.23x with the bare lens). On an APS-C sensor like the 7D 0.34x would mean that a rectangle approx 45mm x 67mm would fill the frame, and on a 5D it would be a rectangle 72mm x 108mm. Also when used on the zoom it would only really be useable at the long end because it would have a minimal effect at the close-end and there is often vignetting with wide-angles. For best image quality it is best to remove other filters and possibly put them on the front but in practice the image quality can still be okay if you just screw it into your protection filter. Personally I prefer macro lenses not so much for their better image quality but because being able to focus continuously from infinity to 1.0x (1:1, life-size) makes them easier to work with. 1:1 means a 14.9mm x 22.3mm rectangle would fill the frame on a 7D and 24mm x 36mm on a 5D.

Extension tubes are another option. Contrary to common belief the image quality can be degraded even though they have no glass simply because many lenses are not optically corrected for close-focusing distances, but this varies with lenses, and in practice it is not so much of a problem. I have found that in practice a good quality close-up lens can actually give better image quality than an extension tube in some cases. A given length extension tube will give greater magnification at the shorter end of your zoom than at the long end, the opposite of close-up lenses. However, I think it may be physically impossible to focus your 24-105mmm zoom at the wide end with say a 25mm extension tube because the plane of focus would be closer than the front element.


A 500D close-up lens will only give you slightly more magnification than you can already get with those lenses so it would not be particularly cost effective. The most important thing is what you intend to shoot and how close do you want to get? Remember both close-up lenses and extension tubes lock you into a very narrow focus range when attached. Either I would look at getting a macro lens or if you want to use the lenses you have a set of extension tubes such as those from Kenko are good value. You can get older manual focus macro lenses pretty cheaply, and even something like a Canon EF 50mm f2.5 macro lens or Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro lens are good value and there are plenty of used ones around.
 
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