Trail Cam Update – Fitting a Close-Up Lens

In my previous post on this subject I was trying to get a shot of a possible bank vole in my flower bed. There was a problem, in that the closest point of focus was nowhere near close enough to the camera as the space it is in is quite constricted. The camera was seeing interesting subjects – birds and a mouse, but they were all out of focus.

I decided to see if I could improve the situation with a conventional one-dioptre close up lens on the front of the trail camera. It’s not something that I already owned so I had a look on ebay and found a 49mm one-dioptre lens for just £3.99 including postage. It would be an interesting test. It arrived a few days later and I tried it out in situ with some masking tape to hold it in place. It improved the situation but only slightly. Something stronger was needed and it had to be small – 30mm in diameter ideally which ruled out anything designed for the filter thread for normal interchangeable lenses.

Back to ebay and I found a whole series of slip-on dioptre filters by Nahlinse which are close up attachments for twin lens reflex cameras like a Rolleiflex – they come in a range of sizes typically around the 30mm mark and the V3 that I purchased was 3 dioptre strength and 29mm in diameter.

It fitted round the raised bezel of the trail cam lens almost perfectly. A small amount of tape round the bezel made it a nice tight push fit and now it is back outside on photo-duty. The results are looking good and the focus range is exactly where it needs to be. Come on bank vole ……