Close up on the cheap with an old 50mm lens.

[Don Hoey]

Rummaged in the old kit bag today to try something for the macro forum. I then thought there may be some members particularly birders whose lens kit is on the long side who might be interested in occasional close up or table top shot on the cheap. Some may even have an old 50mm gathering dust in a cupboard.

Old 50mm lenses are dirt cheap and with the addition of a reversing ring will give the prospect of at least table top close up photography. With a bit of practice and slow moving subjects it is perfectly acceptable in the field.

The process is just slowed down as the lens cannot communicate with the camera body. You therefore have to work in manual mode. If you use flash then there is only a bit of practice to find the best settings.

As there is no light loss you can without flash use the old Sunny f16 rule to guess a reasonable exposure. Refer also to Duncans ' Manual Exposure Thread '.

The Sunny f16 rule was set the shutter speed to the nearest to the ISO. So ISO100 set 1/125 sec. ISO200 set 1/250 sec.
Aperture ....... Bright sun set f16, Sun/cloud set f11, Cloudy set f8. Dull set f5.6.

Kit required is an old type 50mm lens. Or one where you can manually control aperture. A reversing ring. This will have one end with a thread sized to fit your filter thread, and the other to suit your lens mount. Focus is by moving in or out relative to the subject until focus is achieved.

The aperture control is the only tricky bit, as you have to focus at full aperture and then manually stop the lens down to the desired aperture. A little bit of practice is all it takes.

The other alternative is close up lenses that screw into the filter thread. These give acceptable results, not brilliant results. They come in a range of dioptres. My old emergency kit had a +2, and +3. These screw into the filter thread. Preferably use singly. When you stack them distortion really starts to show. These easier to use but are not as effective as a reversed lens.

If you have a 50mm with manually adjustable aperture you can, as I have, take it off turn it round and hold it in position. I got some great hoverfly pics when trying this out.

The attached pictures were taken using flash. A milimetre scale is shown to give some idea how much you can get in.

The image titles give details of what I was using in each pic. The reversed 50mm gives the greatest magnification.

Don