Raynox DCR 150 review

The Raynox DCR-150 and its more powerful brother Raynox DCR-250 Macro Attachment are pressurized macro diopters that increase the magnification of a standard lens. Both fit with a universal mount that clips onto any 52-67mm diameter lens. The Raynox DCR-150 has a magnification factor of 1.5X while the Raynox DCR-250 Macro Accessory has a magnification factor of 2.5X. I will mainly review the Raynox DCR-150 in this review, however it is safe to assume that many of my comments will be valid for the more powerful Raynox DCR-250.

What is macro photography?

True Macro in the photography sense means a 1: 1 magnification, so it essentially means that if something is 5mm in size, it should appear as 5mm on your camera’s sensor. The Raynox DCR-150 acts as a magnifying glass for whatever lens you choose to fit, so it may or may not go up to 1: 1 magnification, however around $ 50 (Feb 2012) is a great inexpensive way to get into photography up close.

Easy to use

The Raynox DCR-150 simply clips onto the front of your lens, so it’s incredibly easy to use in that regard. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, the DCR-150 is simplicity personified, however it doesn’t make macro photography easy. The biggest difficulty when working very closely at high magnification is that the depth of focus is very shallow; This means that the amount of sharp image is very shallow. It’s easy to see this in the image I posted above of the wasp looking at the camera, while the head and eyes are well in focus, the antennas drop quickly into the diffuse focus area, this is at a depth of only 7/8 mm. This is not specific to the Raynox DCR-150, it just clips onto the front of your lens, so in that sense it’s incredibly easy to use. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, the DCR-150 is just a by-product of macro photography and by decreasing its aperture size that makes the F-Stop number larger and increases its depth of field. However, it will still be very shallow and this makes focusing more complicated, the DCR-150 has an advantage over cheap extension tubes that you buy online and that is that it maintains the ability of our cameras to focus automatically, although the trade is that you have another piece of glass in front of your lens, which degrades the image quality a bit. Having said that as you can see from the images I posted in this review, it is capable of producing some great images, the image below is stretching the lens to the maximum and even then I had to focus the 3 image stack to get the image, but it is an image of sufficient quality to meet the submission criteria of stock photography sites and also sell some.

Versatility

One of the best aspects of this type of macro diopter is its versatility, while I use mine on a variety of lenses that I use on my Canon 450D DSLR, I bought it to use on my canon s3 bridge camera, in fact if your camera It has a pop-up zoom lens with a diameter of 52mm to 67mm, so this lens will work very happily attached to the front. You lose the option to focus to infinity, but since it’s incredibly easy to snag and cut through the front of your lens, you could happily be capturing glorious scenery one minute and be on all fours chasing a ladybug the next. on the grass! Other close-up filters require you to screw them into the thread on the front of your lens, which can be difficult on a cold day and obviously if you have lenses with different diameters, you need to buy more filters or reduction rings, which which again is too far a compromise!

Advice

Lighting becomes problematic very quickly when working at a macro level, so in that sense this diopter is no different, when you start using smaller apertures like f16, very little light reaches the camera sensor, for you need a way to help things a bit. . You have 3 options:

• Increase your ISO, which has the consequent effect of increasing noise.
• Leave the shutter open longer, so use a tripod
• Add Flash, be careful to use that flash on top of your camera, it’s invariably rubbish

I usually go for option 3, use a cheap manual flash with some cheap wireless flash triggers, and try to bounce my flash off a reflective card or umbrella to keep it from being so harsh. But the image of the globe in the raindrop was made under studio conditions, so I was able to come out with an 8-second exposure.

General description

I’ve been in love with this little thing since I started using it a couple years ago, sure you could get better results with a dedicated Macro lens or even a set of extension tubes, but they all cost significantly more. This has produced a ton of images that I am very proud of and since I have sold many of these images through stock photography means it has certainly made me more money than I paid for it. I use it for a large number of images and not just to get the maximum magnification, sometimes I want that very shallow depth of focus and my slower lenses don’t work and it works wonders to get me a little closer when shooting food. If you’re looking for a really fun way to get a little closer to your photos and have a bridge camera or an SLR with 52mm to 67mm diameter lenses, then for $ 50 (Feb 2012), I can’t think of From another competitor for this little gem, the words cheap and photography rarely sit well together, but in this case it certainly does!