Raynox DCR-250

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jameslongstrong

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I am looking at trying my hand at some macro photography, Nothing like insects but just watch faces etc to get the hand of it and to expand my knowledge.

Has anyone got any experience with using the Raynox DCR-250 converter?

Which lens would it be best to use on? I have a 50mm f1.8, 70-300mm f/4-5.6and the standard 18-55mm kit lens.

Cheers.

James.
 
It should work fine on any of those lenses, at 50mm and above.

The Raynox is great value and will certainly get you close, but watch faces will perhaps show up its weaknesses. That is, mainly edge sharpness.

With most macro subjects, there is usually not much important detail towards the edges of the picture and what there is, with a three-dimensional subject like a beetle say, will probably be out of focus anyway. But a watch face in 2D and has important edge detail, so you might be disappointed.

Shoot at a high f/number like f/11 or f/16 to minimise aberrations and maximise sharpness.
 
I took these with a Fuji S9600 bridge camera + Raynox DCR-250 a while back

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For £40 it's a lot cheaper than a dedicated macro lens (and the only option on a bridge camera!)
 
Hi James, Hoppy pretty well summed the Raynox DCR250 up, it's great value and has great center sharpness but you'll need to crop quite a bit as the corner sharpness is pretty poor. It works best on zooms such as a 55-200mm (any kit zoom) and if you're using smaller apertures (f11 plus) you'll need to strat thinking about some ligthing. Have a look at my FlickR photostream for an idea of what the Raynox can do: Clicky Here basically any macro in my archive was taken with the DCR250 and kit zoom

Carl
 
James, go for it, for the money and as an intro it works great. I'd go for putting it on the 70-300. Each 100mm is approx 1x magnification. I use mine a lot including on insects. I know it's not as good as a proper macro lens, but I don't have the budget for one at the moment. A couple of examples

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Cheers for the responses guys, the shots posted on here are exactly what I want to do. As I was saying earlier, just to have a play and see what I can do, try differentr lenses etc. I'm also moving house soon and I think a £40 investment now will save money spent on doing other things which will inevitably be needed to be spend on the house.

Where is best to buy? I imagine Ebay???
 
jameslongstrong said:
Where is best to buy? I imagine Ebay???
Click to expand...
As pointed out by Carl best buy I think at the moment is Amazon at £35.99 eBay is looking closer to £50 new, you do not get them very often second-hand. The DCR-250 is a +8 dioptre achromatic filter (3 elements in 2 groups) and will fit any lens with a 52 to 67mm filter thread - I have just bought one and I think it is great. I use mine mainly on my G11...
 
jfb said:
As pointed out by Carl best buy I think at the moment is Amazon at £35.99 eBay is looking closer to £50 new, you do not get them very often second-hand. The DCR-250 is a +8 dioptre achromatic filter (3 elements in 2 groups) and will fit any lens with a 52 to 67mm filter thread - I have just bought one and I think it is great. I use mine mainly on my G11...
Click to expand...

you decided to get one then John :thumbs:
 
jameslongstrong said:
I am looking at trying my hand at some macro photography, Nothing like insects but just watch faces etc to get the hand of it and to expand my knowledge.

Has anyone got any experience with using the Raynox DCR-250 converter?

Which lens would it be best to use on? I have a 50mm f1.8, 70-300mm f/4-5.6and the standard 18-55mm kit lens.

Cheers.

James.
Click to expand...

I have never usse the Raynox DCR-250 converter?I am sorry
__________________
Blank koozies
 
Here is a pic with my 250 on the front of a Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II

 
I've got the DCR-250 and you need to be aware of a few of it's weaknesses. But first i'll give you the good news that if you want to shoot macro and dont want to spend £300+ on a dedicated macro lens it will be the best £35 you'll spend on photography.

But like many things, it has flaws, mainly that due to the nature of the glass the lens does give an extremely shallow depth of field, so shallow in fact that if your subject is bigger than 5mm you'll find it hard to get enough DoF.
That said it still gets you closer than anything else does at £35. I shot a fly, but to get the eyes in focus, the front nose part of the fly was out of focus, that's how shallow the DoF is, it takes a lot of getting used to.
The solution to this is to use focus stacking to achieve more depth of field.

Overall, i'd say buy it, you wont be disappointed and you'll definately enjoy playing with it.
 
Oh yeah. You could always try Lenses For Hire to sample a proper macro lens out.
 
Canonite said:
I've got the DCR-250 and you need to be aware of a few of it's weaknesses. But first i'll give you the good news that if you want to shoot macro and dont want to spend £300+ on a dedicated macro lens it will be the best £35 you'll spend on photography.

But like many things, it has flaws, mainly that due to the nature of the glass the lens does give an extremely shallow depth of field, so shallow in fact that if your subject is bigger than 5mm you'll find it hard to get enough DoF.
That said it still gets you closer than anything else does at £35. I shot a fly, but to get the eyes in focus, the front nose part of the fly was out of focus, that's how shallow the DoF is, it takes a lot of getting used to.
The solution to this is to use focus stacking to achieve more depth of field.

Overall, i'd say buy it, you wont be disappointed and you'll definately enjoy playing with it.
Click to expand...

Just for clarification, the shallow depth of field is nothing to do with the Raynox as such, it's to do with the high degree of magnification.

If you go that close with a true macro lens, you will get the same depth of field.
 
HoppyUK said:
Just for clarification, the shallow depth of field is nothing to do with the Raynox as such, it's to do with the high degree of magnification.

If you go that close with a true macro lens, you will get the same depth of field.
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out. I assumed it was the Raynox itself as my old 90mm f2.8 Tamron did not have such a shallow DoF, it was fully controlled by the aperture, whereas this clips on to the lens it cant be controlled.

I'm gonna go have a mess about now and play with it with narrow apertures to see what i can get.

Al
 
An option to consider are Macro tubes, a bit more versatile, using a standard lens. I use Kenko tubes, maintaining full aperture function, about £85 for a set of 3 tubes on fleBay.
This shot was with a 20mm tube and a Nikon 50mm f1.8.

SpiderrwreducedDSC_1685_edited-1-1.jpg


The 50mm 1.8 Nikon is a peach, pick one up for £70-£80. I have yet to try my 18-70mm Nikon on the tubes, not sure if they maintain focus function? Manual focus is best for macro anyway.

CJS
 
If it watch faces you want to shoot you might be better off with the Raynox 150. I'm pretty sure this was shot with my 150 stuck on the front of my 55-200:

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These were with the 250 on the front of my Panasonic FZ8 bridge camera:

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I think they are great for an intro to macro - I've got to a point where I really would like a dedicated macro lens but for the price I can't fault the raynox at all :thumbs:
 
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