Posted 03/18/2011 11:19 am
Yeah, I had an Olympus e510 with both kit lenses. The lame thing about these lenses is that the focus ring is motor driven, so if you add a non-wired extension tubes ($8 on ebay), you can't use the focus ring nor any of the electronic features of the lens such as the focus light in the viewfinder. You essentiall have to move the entire camera or mess with the zoom to focus the image...and that takes a LOT of trial and error until you get a razor sharp image. Or you can try an Opteka 10x macro lens ($30 on Amazon) that attaches to the front of the lens (I think it will only work on the smaller kit lens, as it wont focus on the larger lens), that will get you closer, but I still wasn't satisfied with the results. You can get really good results using the extension tubes, the smaller kit lens and the Opteka all together (equivalent to a 1:1 macro lens, but then you're back to the trial and error of getting a sharp image. Also Olympus has a software package that allows you to hook your camera up to the computer, so all your shots taken are displayed on your monitor. But the application not only kept crashing, but it sucks up the juice on the Olympus's battery and it gets hot during the drain. So I eventually gave in and sold my Olympus and purchased a nikon d5000 ($385 with body and kit lens) and a nikkor manual focus 55mm macro lens ($55 as I couldn't afford the $400 sigma macro lens) along with a nikon software package that lets me completely control/adjust the camera and display/store images directly to my computer as the shots are taken and I couldn't be happier with the results.
-LTB
-LTB
