My Thoughts !

I saw this article from Gilli on Macro photography by reversing the lens in an SLR. I tried it yesterday. After a lots and lots of trail & errors, I got some good shots. Check this image:


This is taken with a 50mm lens in normal way. Look at the all flowers. The lens cap should give you an idea about the size of those flowers. Now in macro mode, the same flowers:




If you have enough bandwidth, here is the high resolution full screen slide show (The pictures look much better in high resolution).

A brief guide on Reverse lens macro photography:

• First things first - the object. First I tried with some plain flowers and the results were not reflecting in the efforts. It was just like a normal photograph. So select an object which will have lot of details when zoomed in


• Take off your lens, reverse it and hold it to the mount. Keep the other end of the lens some 10-20 cms away from the object and try to move your lens+camera together towards the object. At some point you will find the object focussed. From there you can adjust the focus from your lens


• Remember, the lens is out of its mount. You don't have any control over any of the lens functions. The aperture is wide open and no auto focus


• You retain full control of your sensor. So Whitebalance/ISO are adjustable. Also the shutter speed. Change these settings with the fully open aperture in mind.


• The DOF is too good. The focusable area is hardly one or two millimeters


• Any small movement (either camera/object) will cause dramatic effects in the picture. You would have seen in the above shots itself


• Try to get hold of a tripod and/or a reverse adapter. Believe me. Its a pain in your back to shoot without them :-(


• Patience. You need a lot of patience. But the results will be worthy of the time you spent experimenting.