Hey man not trying to jack your thread but you seem to know your camera stuff. So I went to Wal-Mart last night and grabbed a new camera for my self. Its a GE X400 bridge camera and I'm still not getting great macro shots. Here's the specs on it. 14.1 megapixel 15x wide aspheric ED lens 4.9-73.5mm and 1:3.0-5.2 Now I read that you need a 1:1 magnification for decent macro shots. This was only 129.99 so I figured I would give it a shot being that a lens for the wife's camera is about 599.99. Should I take this pile back because the macro shots look the same as hers. Also when you get to close the flash gets blocked by lens so you get dark spots and hers has the dual flash. I just don't think im going to go blow over 600.00 on a lens. I'd buy a 600.00 LED before I spent that on a lens