Manual macro on the cheap.

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by Saphire

Don, I was thinking of using my 75-300 which has a 58mm thread and the kit lens the 18-55 which also has a 58mm thread. I have tried to hand hold the lens on the end and it does work, I just need the reversing ring.

Christine,

Try ' coupling ring ' I see SRB do them for £21:95 so bound to be loads cheaper on the net.

New Hi-Fi, Jamies pics getting to you.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Christine,

Another option is two 58mm Cokin filter adaptor rings araldited together.

Don

[Saphire]

I tried that Don, but the araldite gave under the weight, good job I had it over a chair cushion..

I have ordered a 58mm to 58mm from china it only comes to £4.65 inc p&p just have to wait now for it to arrive, probably a couple of weeks.

[robski]

Another missed opportunity there Don you could be knocking these up by the dozen in your workshop

[Saphire]

Don, I remembered today that I have two 58mm adapter rings for the cokin P system, very easy to put back to back with duck tape to make a reversing ring. I wish I had remembered I had these before spending all of £4.65 for the proper thing.
I have tried to take some photos with the 18-55 reversed on the end of the 75-300 but to get them focused is a nightmare. I don't think I will be doing this very often. It took quite a while to find the right combination of the two lenses and then the maximum distance away was about 1".
I haven't given up as I have a canon 49mm to eos fit adapter so with duck tape I can now attach one of the 58mm adapter rings and just reverse the 18-55 and give that a go.

1st photo un-cropped
2nd photo cropped

[Don Hoey]

Christine,

I have just looked at Photozone review of your 18-55. That suggests best performance is at 35mm setting. If you reverse that onto the 75-300 at that setting and then use the zoom function of the 70-300 to get focus. Nightmare to focus yes, as by now as you have discovered dof is non existant and even finding the subject in the viewfinder is hard enough. The uncropped image suggests you were closer to the 70mm end. Very similar to my try with the 105mm. I found that had gone by the time 200mm was used. Do you still have an old 50mm that you can reverse on the 70-300 as f2.8 will give more light for focussing.

Well done for giving it a go.

I am still playing with various combos for ease of use, and todays results will follow in a minute.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Two shots from today as I try to sort my best kit option out. Reversed 24 can be a bit of a nightmare in use. At least it had finally stopped raining apart from a mid afternoon thunderstorm. In both instances flash at full power was used, and due to the slightly cumbersome nature of the set up in each instance with the flashguns and bracketry the camera was on a monopod.

The fly was taken with 55 micro + 28 tube and 2x converter. Shown near enough full frame. Shown warts and all ( no NR ) ISO 500 at f16 with Metz flash and diy soft bowl.

Legless the spider, was a quite different tack. 55 micro and tubes and bellows at 150mm ( 6" ) extension. ISO 200 at f16 with SB80-DX on side mounted bracket. Despite the extension I was able to reduce ISO to 200 to get f16 so this has serious advantage over the Fly set up. The spiders body is about 5mm in length to give an idea of its size.

Now all I want is a fairly still day as we had 12mph constant windspeed, and they danced in and out of the viewfinder so getting focus was a major problem.

Don

[Saphire]

Don, I have done a couple with just the 18-55 lens reversed, quite pleased with the result except having no control over DOF. I will see if I can find some way of attaching the old tessar lens to the adapter. I will then be able to stop it down once I have focus.

[Don Hoey]

Now thats impressive Christine. Got you hooked now.

The obvious question, and maybe Sassan might know, is there a means of stopping the lens down. Lucky for me Nikon is a lever system but I believe Canon is electronic.

Don

[Saphire]

Don, yes it is electronic, the tessar is manual I will give it a go in daylight tomorrow and see how it works out.