Canon S1 IS

[Vizual Xtc]

I'm a new owner of the above camera. First camera i have ever owned.

Does this camera have the macro function? , or is there a lens available?

[sameerb]

This camera dosen't have macro function button which you can turn on / off
you can shoot macro photos just like that without changing any settings
and there is no micro lense available for Canon S1 IS

[Velvet G]

The S1 IS doesn't have a dedicated macro mode, but you can still get pretty close up shots. There are macro lenses for this camera. You need the lens hood kit and then you can add a B+W Macro Lens (+10) seen here:

http://www.schneideroptics.com/filters/filters_for_still_photography/close-up/

Here's a link to my macro shots with it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrian/sets/46241/

Please feel free to ask any questions about it. It was the best $32 I've spent in a while.

VG

[sameerb]

hey Velvet G ,

I didn't knew there are Macro lenses available for S1 IS
anyways thanx for the info
I was going through your album and i really liked macro shots taken by you
can you tell me which macro lense you are using for S1 IS
Thanx in advance

[Velvet G]

Thank you! I thought there weren't any for it either but refused to accept it and kept looking for one. The one I bought is a B+W Macro Lens (NL10) which has a 52mm thread.

I ordered mine from B and H photo.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=11207&is=REG

They also have less expensive "close up" lenses, but they didn't give me the results I wanted.

To use the filters and lenses, you'll need to buy a lens hood.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?ci=1&sb=ps&pn=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=SearchBar&A=search&Q=*&shs=Canon+S1+IS+lens+hood&image.x=0&image.y=0

but I will say to look around. Other companies make metal ones. The Canon one is plastic and not worth $30.

[Velvet G]

Oh. and you may want to look into getting an 80a blue filter for using it indoors and either a skylight or UV filter to use with it for shooting outside.

I've found that they've made a difference. The 80a seems to knock out that orangish cast that pictures shot indoors seem to have.

[Bodryn]

I have an S1 IS also and can't thank you enough, Velvet, for all that information and all your research on the subject! Great stuff! BTW, am I right in assuming that this should work well also for duplicating slides? I think I could just put a milky translucent filter behind the slides and then backlight the thing and focus carefully.

[Velvet G]

You're welcome. I can't imagine that it wouldn't work. I've never done it because my scanner does negatives and slides as well but logically it makes sense that it would work.

[Jon]

I have an S1 IS also and can't thank you enough, Velvet, for all that information and all your research on the subject! Great stuff! BTW, am I right in assuming that this should work well also for duplicating slides? I think I could just put a milky translucent filter behind the slides and then backlight the thing and focus carefully.
It can work, if you can keep from having any light hitting the front of the slide, and keep both the slide and the camera rigid, and can get everything focussed correctly, and can have a smooth enough light source. However, how well it works will be another question. You're likely to find that a zoom lens with +10 closeup lens on it doesn't have a very flat field; so you'll be losing sharpness around the edges if focussed on the center, in the center if focussed on the corners, or over both the center and corners if you focus mid-way between them. You're also likely to run into chromatic abberation and other lens distortion nasties. You're better off

Getting a dedicated film scanner ($400+)
Using a flat-bed scanner (lower resolution than film scanner)
Getting a dedicated slide-copying rig ($1500 or so, but you'll get a Digital Rebel and macro out of it as well)
Taking the slides/negatives in to be scanned by a service bureau (pennies to a few dollars per image, delivered on CD-ROM, and potentially at a much higher quality than any of the other options can hope to deliver)

[Bodryn]

Okay, this confirms what others have told me some time back. I like the idea of a specialized slide scanner so as not to risk rough handling of valuable slides.