In answer to mad_brewer's question in the comments on this picture:
this is a front and back view of my macro converter. It doesn't look like it here, but there is glass in the middle.
The actual back thread on this filter is 43mm, so it can't be used on wide angle lenses, though it works on my 50mm 1.8 without vignetting. The adaptor (which is removable) clips into lenses ranging from 52-67mm diameter, though I've managed to squeeze it into a 49mm lens on my Olympus C2100-UZ, which was the camera for which I originally bought it. At the time I thought I'd made a mistake buying it because of the 43mm actual diameter and being restricted to the tele end of the zoom, but I've used it on so many different cameras now, that in the end it turned out to be money well spent.