S1SI Powershot closeup lens (500D). Needed?

[S1 Guy]

Was looking at the Canon Powershot S1SI homepage. Notice that Canon offers a closeup lens (500D) for the S1SI camera. Is this lens really needed? Reason I ask is with the fantastic zoom in abilities both on and off camera of the digital cameras, that a close up lens might not be needed? Understand that I am new to digital cameras here. What situations would this closeup lens be superior to the closeup abilities of the camera itself or later tweeking with photoware? Thanks, Charles

[DocFrankenstein]

If you want to take pictures of bugs and flowers, then you need them. Otherwise I just set 10x zoom, and 1 m focal distance and you get decent quality.

But you'll be able to take pics from like 3 cm with closeup lenses.

[tracy]

hi.. i was wondering with the focal length on the s1sI , will the back ground of a photo be out of focus like a slr camera? i like the new camera and hope that it will.if not, i'm half tempted to look at a digital slr. thank you