close up filters

For food bloggers just starting out with their first DSLR, I usually recommend the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D Lens as a fantastic basic, all purpose food lens. If there’s a little extra money available, Nikon 50mm f/1.4D AF Lens is my absolute favorite go-to lens for most things.

However, the frustrating thing about this lens (and about most “kit” lenses that come in a lot of the DSLR starter sets) is that they don’t focus very close. IF you want a really tight close up shot of something, you might be out of luck, as the lens will simply refuse to focus if you’re closer than 2 or 3 feet from your subject. So what’s a food blogger who wants to get those lovely close detail shots to do?

You could buy a separate macro lens. The Nikon 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro Lens is an excellent choice and pretty reasonably priced at around $470. Or my favorite, the Nikon 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro Lens, but that one runs around $900 – well worth it for the VR (vibration-reduction) feature, IMO.

Ok, ok, so … most food bloggers and amateur photographers just aren’t able or willing to drop $500++ on a specialty lens. So the next best option?

These!

This is a set that I found online for $14 plus shipping: Digital Concepts +1 +2 +4 +10 Close-Up Macro Filter Set with Pouch (58mm)

The pouch contains filters that you screw on the front of your existing camera lens. You just want to make sure that you buy the right kit for your lens – check the outside edge of your lens for the diameter in mm. For example, the Nikon 50mm lens has a 58mm diameter.

There are 4 filters that magnify as follows: 1x, 2x, 4x, and 10x.

So here’s an example of exactly how well they work. Start with an image shot with the 50mm lens. This is as close as I can get to the subject before the lens won’t focus:

This is with the 1x filter:

This is with the 2x filter:

This is with the 4x filter:

And this is with the 10x filter:

Pretty cool, huh? The filters might cause a little flare when used outside and because they aren’t really high end glass, they’ll cause a teeny bit of softening to your images. But overall, if choosing between spending $500 on a specialty macro lens, and $15 on a set of filters, most people will do quite nicely with the $15 filters.

Oh, and I shoot Nikon, hence my Nikon recommendations above. The corresponding lenses in the Canon line would be:
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens – $99
Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Standard & Medium Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras – $370
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM Digital SLR Lens for EOS Digital SLR Cameras – $422
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM 1-to-1 Macro Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras – $940