Okay, I'll admit I'm no pro, and I don't have a DSLR. Not that I wouldn't
want one, mind you...
What I do have is an HP PhotoSmart C618 [a year 2000 model 2.1MP], bought dirt-cheap on eBay in June '06 to replace a broken Vivitar ViviCam 3500. It's actually the best camera I've ever owned -- since 1976, five or six film cameras [including a Brownie 127!] and three digitals [the first of which was a horrid piece of junk completely unworthy of being mentioned in this forum] -- but the really
FUN stuff started this past December, when I bought a Tiffen HP618AD lens/filter adapter for it. That lets me mount 37mm threaded stuff over the existing lens. And, since I needed something to actually mount on it, I also bought a starter set of filters -- a polarizer, a UV [I thought I needed it, but I don't really see that it has any effect], and what was claimed to be an FL-D on the box but which is actually a mislabeled ND4. I'm not complaining; I shoot more outdoors than under fluorescent lighting anyway.
So, that was the start of the obsession.
My sister -- the
real photographer in the family, and the one who told me about this site -- bought me a star filter and a graduated neutral for Christmas, and then I bought a set of four macro lenses [+1, +2, +4, and +10]. The latest addition is a 0.5x wide-angle lens, and that has 49mm threads in the front, so I simply
HAD to add a polarizer, a 1A filter, a star filter, and an FL-D in the 49mm size as well.
My favorites out of the whole bunch? Those macro lenses, definitely! With all four stacked up, plus the wide-angle, I've taken shots from as little as about 3/8" away from an object, which would
not have been possible for this camera without the attachments, even with the camera's macro mode. Ran into the ol' learning curve on day one with those little lenses, though...
Eventually figured out on my own that I have to lock the focus at infinity and move the camera.
One of my favorite macro shots so far, attached. I don't recall whether I used the full stack of lenses on this one, but if I did, then the sweet spot was perhaps two inches away from the lens, and I would have used the camera's 3x optical zoom to get past the vignetting [the big down-side of using that adapter]. Incandescent room light, no flash [I learned
very quickly that I can't flash at that distance!], camera mounted on a mini-tripod, auto-everything-else [except focus]. The camera wound up doing a 2.5-second exposure, which explains the noise. I've corrected the color balance and scaled it down from the original 1600 x 1200.
Edit: I'm thinking I probably didn't use all four lenses on this one -- the field looks too deep. I believe this might've been just the +10.
So anyway... Not a pro, no DSLR
<*drool*>, but a reasonably decent old point-and-shoot with some manual controls, and an aftermarket gizmoid for attaching filters and other lenses. That's my story. Software-wise, I use Picture Window Pro for post-production, and I "produce" for my own enjoyment, for email, and for my web pages -- strictly amateur hobbyist stuff. I'm really psyched up about experimenting with these various attachments, though.