In the earlier years of the blog I posted quite a bit about various methods of getting lenses to focus closer than intended to achieve greater magnification. Methods include extension tubes, macro lenses, reversing a normal lenses in front of a telephoto lens, reversing lenses and auxiliary or diopter closeup "filters".
My only current method of increasing a lens magnification is the Canon 500D closeup lens/filter. I have them in 72mm and 77mm diameters. When screwed on the front of my 24-105mm lens the maximum magnification increases from .24X to .39X.
The cost of this increase in close focusing ability is the loss of focusing beyond the closeup range. This is also true with extension tubes which fit between the lens and the camera body and are much more cumbersome to install and remove.
I haven't been using the 500D much at all in recent years. Most modern lenses have decent native magnification so the moderate increase of the 500D isn't often worth the bother. A lens that I would probably use it more often with is the 50mm f/1.2L which has only a .19X magnification but .31X with the 500D. This lens is also hefty enough that the added 250 grams added to the front filter threads wouldn't be too noticeable.
Here is a photo of the 500D on the left compared to a UV filter on the right.
Here are photos demonstrating the increase in magnification the 500D provides with the 24-105mm lens t 105mm and at the minimum focus distancce.
 |
| without 500D |
 |
| with 500D |
 |
| without 500D |
 |
| with 500D |
