WOW - the most amazing discovery, Wide angle MACRO!!

Well ok, not a discovery in the sense of I've come across something no one else knows about, more a case of understanding the equipment and the effect that has!

Whilst in Cebu chatting to Shannon Conway about photographing the Weedy and Leafy Seadragons I asked what lens to use, (these animals are about 45 cm long so both a 60mm and 100mm macro wont be able to get them full frame and still be close enough to photograph the beautiful detail these creatures have) he told me he uses a wide angle lens with a diopter on.

I for some reason (am gonna blame the San Miguel Lights ;o)) decided that this meant the diopter magnified the subject making it fill more of the wide angle frame... Oh how wrong I was!!

After a discussion on www.digigreen.net I started to understand, the primary reason for using a diopter on a wide angle lens is infact to allow you to get CLOSER to the subject enabling you to fill the frame that way

DOH!

So I had a bit of practice last night (excuse the shadows, I was unable to use the camera's flash as it was reflecting too much on the page!) here are the results...


No diopter, 22mm


+ 2 Diopter, 22mm


+ 4 Diopter, 22mm

And even more obvious how close I can get:


No Diopter, 10mm


+ 2 Diopter, 10mm


+ 4 Diopter, 10mm

This is basically allowing me to focus on soemthing about 4cm away from the end of the lens... By the time the camera is in it's housing that *should* mean I can almost touch a subject with the port and still focus.... Great news!... Only there is another problem to overcome first - for some reason I'm struggling to focus on subjects that close when underwater, now I have the diopters and the practise the next step is getting in the water and seeing if I can achieve the same results

Please note the image I used was a photo in Martin Edge's book: www.edgeunderwaterphotography.co.uk/pages/myBook