Manual macro on the cheap.

[Don Hoey]

A case of what do you do when it's chucking it down with rain. This fly was plaguing me in the workshop so a change of mission and no way was I going to be able to do a flight shot Christine.

Thinking back to Alex and the reversed lens idea, I tried that by reversing the 28mm onto the 105mm. Result serious vignetting. Pic attatched. That problem is solved from 200mm onwards. The upside is that auto diaphragm is retained but lens to subject distance is very small. My 200mm is f4 so in todays light focussing was a nightmare.

So in for a penny in for a pound and I dragged out an old Sigma 24mm that has not been used since the 80's. Reversed this gives pretty impressive magnification.

Field of view in the viewfinder is 10mm edge to edge. Lens to subject distance is around 1 1/2 inches. Dof is no more than a couple of millimeters. Lighting is a problem, as is not scaring the subject. At least Nikon have a lever system for the diagphragm so I was able to stop the lens down to f16 and use the lever to open the lens up while focussing. Focussing was done by moving the camera in and out. Flash on half power ( flash duration 1/1100 sec ) ensured sufficient speed to freeze the shot.

Don

[sassan]

Well done Don.
Definitely time well spent and worth all the hassle.
To me nothing like bringing back to life some of those old gadgets that are left out of sight.
Another thing that needs a two thumbs up is your clean sensor that has surprisingly no dust.
Congratulation on all counts.

[Saphire]

Wow! Don they are fantastic kicks my flying shots out the window, the clarity and detail, the setup has picked out is amazing. I keep saying I will get a reversing ring but haven't got round to getting one yet. I am going to do some surfing and see what I can find.

[Lello]

Don was the flash on or off camera and was it just the one flash used?
Again incredible detail

[Don Hoey]

Christine,

As you have a zoom then a ring to reverse a lens on that is probably the best starting point. My setup with a reversed 24mm straight onto the camera presents several challenges.

Huge magnification = minimal dof and focusing is a bit of a stuggle.
Lens to subject distance around 1 1/2 inches = only usable on subjects that are not easily scared. I was really lucky with the fly in that respect.
Lighting, but you have that sorted as your homemade ringflash is perfect, even a small diffusion panel will work well with a pop-up. My snag with the X is I have no pop-up, so have to use a hotshoe mounted flash and I am still playing with the best diffusion method for that.

Now that ' Lucky ' has had his out of the cage and flyaround session, I will look in my lean to and see if there is anything else to take a pic of.

Outside ... its raining, so I'll give that a miss for now.

Don

[Saphire]

Don, I can get hold of a 58mm reversing ring to attach direct to the camera very easy from this country, but not the 58-58 they only have them in china that is the one I would prefer to get then it can be put back to back with my other lens. I will keep searching as they are not expensive only around £4.99.

[sassan]

Originally Posted by Saphire

I can get hold of a 58mm reversing ring to attach direct to the camera very easy from this country, but not the 58-58 they only have them in china that is the one I would prefer to get then it can be put back to back with my other lens. I will keep searching as they are not expensive only around £4.99.

No Christine, you don't want to buy reverse mount adapter ring. You lose that zoom that functions as focusing ring for you.
Your best bet is the one Alex initially gave us as link. "Kirk". Very reputable company that stands proudly by their products. I have made several purchases from them after getting the link from Alex and have been completely satisfied with all. Here is the link if you don't have:

LINK

Remember that the ring is (gay) Male to male and now your challenge is to find the 2 right size outer rim lenses that fit to each other. If none available, don't worry, you can get the right "Step up" or "Step down" to make the needed bridge.

Also if you are into DIY thingies (& possibly messes) you may want to get a help from my best and last resort friend, "Duck Tape" that can fuse two cheaper (Emphasis on cheap) lenses. I would rather strongly suggest buying from Kirk though and remember the fine prints, so fine that can not be read on this page: Should something go wrong following my advise on duck tape, I am not responsible.

[Don Hoey]

Well another grim day weatherwise here so I settled for a pic as promised to Lesley of the flash set up for the fly pic.

To give a better idea of the magnification I found a fly about 8mm long ( don't know what it is ) that I took side on to show the limited dof at f16. I did not persue further images as being basically black it is hard to show any interesting detail.

For Christine I did the edge of a £2 coin which is posted full frame, to give some idea of the magnification. This was taken with D100 and diffused pop-up flash at f22. Diffusion was a bit of kitchen towel taped to the end of the lens and loosly folded back and taped to the top of the pop-up.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Christine,

The BIG difference between Alex's method and mine are :

Alex uses a zoom attatched normally to the camera with a lens reversed onto that. The significant advantage is that you can use the zoom function to focus, and you are always viewing at open aperture.

Mine is the cheapo alternative but a lot trickier, and requires a lens with lever operated diaphragm. You have to set the lens to the taking aperture f16/f22 and then use a finger to on the lever to open the lens diaphragm for focussing. As the only zoom I now have is 28-105 it will suffer the same vignetting shown in the last pics I posted.

For your zoom you have the 75-300 or 80-400 but I do not know if you have access to a lens to reverse onto the zoom. Or are you going to do a raid on Joe's kit bag.

If you post the filter thread sizes it may help in comming up with a solution.

Don

[Saphire]

Sorry for not replying sooner but had a bad couple of days buying a new Hi Fi, its a long story but we are on our third and that has to go back. Another faulty one.

Sassan, thanks for the link I will check it out. I have seen a few for sale in the states through ebay and one from china so will probably go that route but it will take a few weeks to get here. I will have to be patient.

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.