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First hands on review with the NiSi close-up lens

Apr 25, 2020 by Ole Henrik Skjelstad 8 Comments

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Iso 1600 108mm f/8 1/750 sec

I was on thin ice again when I received the Nisi close-up Lens a few days ago. It meant that I had to immerse myself in macro photography, something which takes years of practice to master.

The close-up lens works as a magnifying glass that you can attach to a telelens. In practice, this means that you can get much closer to your subject and that you can shoot macro without having to invest in a more expensive dedicated macro lens.

In these corona times, macro photography is a great past time activity, and you can just walk into your garden to find interesting subjects and compositions.

Build quality

The lens is well built, and just by the feel and weight, you know that it is made from high-quality glass. It comes in a pouch for safe storage.

You can screw the close-up lens directly onto a lens with 77mm filter threads. Included in the package are also step down rings for 72 and 67mm filter threads. This meant that I could attach the lens to the Tamron 70-180, which is 67mm.

The close-up lens works best with lenses between 70-300mm, and at 200mm, you achieve a 1:1 magnification. Most (but not all) of the macro lenses offered today are 1:1.

Iso 1600 160mm f/8 1/1000 sec

Handling

It took some trial and error before I understood that I had to move very close to the subject before autofocus began to work. Then it took me two days to grasp that manual focus is the better option when it comes to macro photography. I also learned that if you want a decent depth of field, you need around f14 to f18 at 200mm.

At such narrow apertures, good light is a must, and you also need to crank up the ISO. Since I am troubled with some hand-shake I needed to shoot at fast shutter speeds.

The second day with the lens, I found out that going very low improved everything. So, I lay there flat on the ground, trying to nail the compositions until it struck me that I could use the camera display instead of the viewfinder. I was learning by doing.

iso 2000 126mm f/9 1/2000 sec

iso 2500 126mm f/11 1/2500 sec

iso 1250 124mm f/16 1/750 sec

iso 200 125mm f/16 1/500 sec

iso 6400 126mm f/16 1/800 sec

iso 1600 150mm f/16 1/500 sec

Conclusion

I had never imagined that macro photography could be so fun and addictive. The Nisi Close-Up lens preserves detail and enhances bokeh, and it helps you move very close to your subjects. For me, the lens opened up a whole new world. Also, I can now just walk out into the garden to enjoy photography.

You can order the Nisi close-up lens here for $139.

All images: Sony a7riii and Tamron 70-180.

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Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: macro photography, macro photography lens, NiSi, NiSi closeup lens, NiSi lenses

About Ole Henrik Skjelstad

Ole Henrik Skjelstad is a Norwegian math teacher and landscape photographer. He fell in love with photography in 2013 when he got a camera as a birthday present. You can follow his work on 500px, IG, and Flickr, and get his tutorials here.

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