Close up filters - are they worth it?

Aperture said:

I just received my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 today and I'm pretty satisfied with it. The portraits are stellar and the lens is really sharp. I'd like to be able to get a bit closer with it on plants/insects, though, to make it a little closer to a macro lens and hopefully get some decent shots. (I know I'm not going to get crazy good macros, but I'd like to try )

Anyway, I was going to try and buy a set but I'm wondering if they're even worth it...? Does anyone have any sample pics by chance? I'm also not planning to spend a ton, I just want a basic set to get started. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

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The filters are called "diopters" and work very well. But buy either the Nikon or canon brand. Both come in the 52mm size and both brands use achromatic lens in the diopter (that's a two element lens) the cheaper ones made by tiffen and the like are not as good and have a sigle element lens. (Well at least such was the case when I bought mine.)

You can't get 1:1 with diopters but you can gt "closer".

The other option is to buy a used manual focus Nikon micro lens. These work better, will go to 1:1 and costs under $100. I use the old "Micro Nikor" 55mm f/3.5 lens with my D50. I think I paid about $60 for the lens. At one time in the late 1960's this lens was the sharpest lens in the world. The lens is old but still sharper than my D50 can record

I have been meaning to start a thread like this, there are so many different cheap ways to get into macro photography, close up rings, extension tubes, reversing rings... which is best?!

I had a dig around for Nikon diopters, but all it turned up were eyepiece correction lens thingys. Does anyone know where on the net you can find diopters for Nikon in the UK?

Thanks

Whenever I read about these on the net, people use the canon ones and moan about the lack of nikon ones. I think the Can. ones are supposed to be as good as you can realistically get.

I have a set of cheap marumi ones which I picked up as a joke with some lens or other. They are single element, uncoated, but you can get some fun and reasonable results with them. I would post examples but for a little error of deletion (15k photos... backup is my friend now).