Lens Reversal Technique!

[Sahil]

Yesterday I tried my hands on Lens reversal technique. Reversed the nifty-fifty in front of Sigma 70-300mm. The results are satisfactory.. What say?

[mrrod]

How do you do lens reversal?

[Sahil]

Rod, Technically I won't be tell you as much.
But here is what I did.

My 70-300mm was attached to the camera body & I reversed my 50mm, with aperture set to lowest no. in front of 70-300mm lens, set at 70mm. Auto-focus should be disabled. Now you can either keep holding the lens with your hands or tape the with your other lens. I hand-held it. Then got closer to the subject. Its li'l tricky to nail the focus. I googled an image from some other source to explain things better.


The advantage I had was that Dia of my tele-lens is 58mm & 50mm is 52mm. That helped me to keep the lenses in place.
Hope that helps.

[Dave Humphries]

The advantage I had was that Dia of my tele-lens is 58mm & 50mm is 52mm. That helped me to keep the lenses in place.

Hi Rod,

... and if you like the results, there are double male threaded filter rings available to join the two 'properly'.

However, the whole assembly is a bit unweildy with the length, and extra weight on the end of the small lens on the end of your zoom, so take care not to 'ding' the end against something

Cheers,

[Sahil]

Dave,

Are these double male threads available for varying diameters too? Like one end be 58mm and the other be 52mm?

And yea, one has to be 'EXTRA CAUTIOUS' when getting close to the subject, coz you are very much likely to 'ding' into something....

[Dave Humphries]

Dave,

Are these double male threads available for varying diameters too? Like one end be 58mm and the other be 52mm?

What, like this you mean?

Cheers,

[rpcrowe]

I remember two ways that reversed lenses were used.

1. Attaching a reversed lens at the front of the camera lens. This requires an adapter with a double male thread. The first thread screws into the lens that is mounted on the camera and the second lens screws into the other side of the double male screw mount adapter. (AS ABOVE EXAMPLES).

2. Attaching a reversed lens directly onto the camera. This requires an adapter which fits directly onto the camera on one side (as does a lens) and has a male screw thread on which a reversed lens is mounted, In this case you are shooting with only one lens, not two. If memory serves me correctly, this method produced better I.Q. than does method #1. The drawback with this system is than the lens needs to be able to be stopped down manually, However, there are a lot of really inexpensive manual focus lenses on the used market which can be stopped down manually. An additional drawback is the inability to focus this setup. There is a very small DOF and the camera/lens must be moved so that the desired portion of the image is in focus. A definite plus is that this method can produce some really large subject to image ratios...

http://www.dpchallenge.com/tutorial.php?TUTORIAL_ID=81

[Sahil]

Yea Dave. Exactly that. Lets see if I can find it here, in India. Thanks.

@ Thanks Richard for the info. I guess the second method will reduce the vignetting too. DoF is very small in the first method too. ( the only one that I have tried).

[Sahil]

Hey I found Nikon's Lens reversal ring on E-bay. Its pretty cheap. Around $7. Are there any quality issues related to it?
I mean, anything I should check before buying it?

[Inkanyezi]

Reversing ring is a rather straight-forward thing, so you need not worry abour quality issues.

But with Nikon, you must find exposure by trial and error, as there is no way to measure the light and aperture auto will not work. Also stopping down is a bit tricky if you want more depth of field, when your lens does not have an aperture ring. Stopping down can be done with the little lever on the lens that stops it down when shooting. Some lenses allow a wedge to be inserted, the wedge can be made from cardboard or plastic that is thin enough to slip in beside the diaphragm lever.

When the usual kit lens is reversed, it magnifies the subject when set at short focal length, and the distance is about 2" from the lens. DOF is very shallow, and it is difficult to find sharpness, which can only be set by moving the camera (or object) back and forth. However, the technique may render very sharp pictures of small objects, if you only can control the distance between camera and object in some way.

[Sahil]

I plan to use my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 for reversal. It has an aperture ring. Getting the focussed image is tricky, but doable. I took the above shots with quite an ease. I obviously couldn't have expected it to be as smooth as a macro lens would be.

PS:- I have no clue how it is like, to use a macro lens.

[Inkanyezi]

If you use the prime 50 reversed, you might have to put extension rings between the lens and camera to get the result you want. I don't know at which distance you'll find focus with just the reversing ring.

[Sahil]

What do you say about the pics posted above? I am ok with those too, but don't know how better it can get.

[Dave Humphries]

I have no clue how it is like, to use a macro lens.

Brilliant

I have the Nikon 105mm f2.8 VR2 - after phaffing with tubes and manual exposure and focus, everything becomes effortless - AF, VR, metering - they all work. Use it as a normal lens, then when you want to get close, just do it.

But they're not cheap

[Dave Humphries]

What do you say about the pics posted above? I am ok with those too, but don't know how better it can get.

They seem to suffer from the "sharp bit in the middle" syndrome - which is actually more than I usually managed, so well done. I haven't proved it, but I always get the impression that focus field isn't as flat as you'd want it with a reversed lens, I imagine it as being spherical - but if that were the case, you could, on a flat subject like a book page, get a sharp ring of focus, but I have never seen it so I think I am mistaken.

For what they are; test shots, I think you've done well.

Cheers,

[Sahil]

Thanks for the input, Dave
Yes, they were just the test shots, so I am pretty happy. I have ordered Lens Reversal Ring. Lets see how it goes.

[Dave Humphries]

Thanks for the input, Dave
Yes, they were just the test shots, so I am pretty happy. I have ordered Lens Reversal Ring. Lets see how it goes.

Good luck, we'll expect to see the results

Cheers,

[Rob Douglas]

You will get better IQ by using extention tubes. They come in sets and seperatly. You can use it with a variety of different lenses to get the desired close-up. I have the kenko set and love it. As an example I was goofing around at my sister-in-laws house and took this shot with my Sigma 50-500mm and a 25mm Kenko extention tube at 137mm.

[Rob Douglas]

This is also another good example of extension tube use.
Canon EOS 50D
Shutter Speed 1/10
Aperture f/11
ISO Speed 800
Focal Length 50mm
EF 50mm f/1.8 II with Kenko 25mm extension tube

[Sahil]

These dew drops are on a spider web, which were not at all visible to naked eyes. They looked beautiful.