Macro lenses for a point and shoot.

I finally broke down and purchased a macro lens for my SP-350. I've seen dynamite results from the Inon lenses but I have a threaded WA lens so I stuck with a threaded macro lens from Epoque. To be frank, I'm obviously missing something. My camera has an excellent supermacro mode and a good macro mode. The lens I purchased doesn't seem to make it a whole lot better. Things appear slightly bigger however, I lose a tremendous amount of DOF. Its also tough to get the camera to focus on what I'm taking a picture of. I guess to frame this into a couple of questions, I'll try below.

1. Am I on the right track and just need more practice using the lens.

2. Should I be stacking more than one lens to achieve some better macros?

3. Do you use a fixed or autofocus - if fixed do you use some kind of framing equipment to gauge distance?

One item of note is the lens says that it shortens the closest focal point of the camera and has like 2X magnification. My camera already focus's down to less than an inch in supermacro. Here's my best macro pic (Crown of Thorns) to date taken without the lens but on my recent outing I only got a few decent shots out of many. Thanks for any and all input.

yep, those macro add on lens will cut down depth of field. If you are shooting in manual or at least Aperture priority, try setting to f/8 (not sure what's the smallest f stop on the SP350).

Focusing can get frustrating. Make sure you have good lighting on the subject. Or try to lock focus on an area that has high contrast, hold the focus, and then recompose moving your camera back or forth to get the subject in focus...

These lenses let you get back a little bit further for macro shots. You don't spook the critter and the shot is a lot easier to light than when you are 2cm away - lol!

Cheers

James

to add to the great advise already offered..........

and I'm not sure about the specific characteristics of your sp-350....................

but some camera models do not offer ttl strobe control when set to supermacro due to the partial blocking by the lens barrel of the onboard flash when so close to the subject........only a slave signal might be available........not a problem if you shoot manual strobe control...........but ttl tends to work fine in most macro situations...........

hth,

b

James,

I have a new-found respect for all those great macro shots out there.

Bob,

I have the SP350 with the FL20 flash housed along with a YS27DX. The TTL actually works fine...except on supermacro mode where there's a tendency to blow out the shot. Am I wrong in thinking I need more of these macro lenses to stack together in order to move further away while making the critter look closer? When I get really close to these guys and position the strobe in front of the port angled down, I'm usually blowing them away. The hard part though is focus. It seems really hard, even with a focus light to get these things tack sharp like the leg in the starfish above.