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| My Olympus Stylus 1010 |
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| the diopter attaches with a magnet to the tip of the lens |
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| the magnetic diopter |
I have been a big fan of Olympus cameras. For as long as I have owned digital point and shoots I have purchased Olympus. One day years back I noticed the "supermacro" setting on my Stylus 1010 and I played around with it quite a bit, finding that I could get good quality closeups at very close range. In winter one very cold and dry snowfall left gorgeous flakes on the hood of our van that had fantastic shape and clarity so I tried a few shots and, lo and behold, snowflake detail!
I could not afford a DLSR but wanted to experiment a bit more. I found a set of cheap magnetic lenses I could attach to the end of my lens. One was a super zoom and the other a wide angle. The optics on these budget lenses didn't do a very good job but I noticed that the wide angle one came in two pieces. I unscrewed them and found that the little piece was no more than a magnifying glass. Upon combining the supermacro setting with this magnifying glass (I have since found out the technical term is a "diopter") I was able to get some great closeup shots, albeit with plenty of trial and error!
Not every snowfall is optimal for these types of shots. The best seem to appear when it's very cold and dry with only a few flakes falling. Scarves and other thick textured loose knits make good backgrounds. It also involves a lot of trial and error and throwaway shots. It's difficult to get a well focused image with such a shallow depth of field.
The diopter and lens I have is not available for sale anymore, but if you google "little big shot" there is a blogger who is selling something similar.
