Reversing a Canon FD 50mm f/1.8...

Greetings,

 

As my search for an affordable macro continues unsuccessfully, I am

considering reverse-mounting my 50mm f/1.8 to my A-1 in order to get

more magnification. My understanding is that I can purchase a mount

for just such a task. Does anyone know for what I should be looking?

 

Also, what might I expect in terms of picture quality from such a

reversing?

 

 

Thanks.

The results are pretty good with the 50/1.8 reversed. I find it works better than the 50/1.4 or 50/1.2L reversed, interestingly enough.

 

You want a "reversing ring" with threads that will screw into the front of the lens and an FD mount that will attach it to the camera. You also need a way of stopping down the lens. If you have a New FD bayonet mount lens, the ideal thing to have is the "Macro Auto Ring" which fits onto the mount end of the lens and turns it into a manual diaphragm lens. Some of the breech-lock lenses had a switch to stop down the lens. Another option is to sacrifice an FD end cap (cutting out the cap surface leaving only the mount ring) to attach to the lens in reverse position and to fix the stop down lever in place.

 

Another issue is to be sure to carefully shade the exposed rear element of the lens from stray light, since reversed lenses can be very prone to flare.

You can probably find more info by searching the threads. It is simply called a "reverse adapter". It mounts to your camera body and it must have the same thread size as the filter thread on your lens, or you can use step-up/step-down rings to do so. If my memory is correct you can also get a reverse thread adapter which allows you to mount one lens in reverse onto another lens already mounted on the camera. There are a couple of little things you need to do to open and hold open the aperture on your 50mm.

 

All in all not a very practical way to macro. Your depth of field is counted in millimetres not inches, and your film to subject distance is in inches and not feet, which makes it very difficult to get any light on your subject. If your subject is blowing in the breeze, forget it!

 

I have seen many affordable 50mm macros on eBay, the 100 and 200 which are much more practical are not so reasonable.

 

Good luck!

In the macro range, DOF is a function of magnification and aperture only, so at a certain magnification ratio and aperture, DOF will be the same whether you use a macro lens, reversing ring, extension tubes, bellows, teleconverter or any combination thereof.

 

If you want more subject distance, use a longer lens.

It is called a Macro Photo Coupler. Mine is FL58mm. Meaning that you have to use a a lens with 58mm dia. I believe that canon also made one for 52mm lens. It also has an adjustment that goes out 13mm of extension. I use mine with a fd bl 50 1.4 lens. The lens has 55mm diz, so a use a step ring to go from 58mm to 55mm. Works great. usually $20 - $30 on ebay.

I think a better solution to the macro with the A-1 is an extension tube set. It's just a spacer between the lens and the camera, so the image is much brighter and less bulky than a reversed lens. In the set you get a several different sizes depending on the magnification desired. These are pretty easy to find depending where you are; I got mine in Panama for $10, but out here in Japan where A-1's are common they're generally about $60 a set, and still easy to find.

Jason:

 

The best solution for you probably depends on the results you're looking to obtain. If you are truly serious about close-up photography, you should probably save your pennies and purchase a dedicated macro lens of some kind. The most common "affordable" ("affordable" being a somewhat subjective term) choices for FD-mount cameras would be FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro and FD 100mm f/4 Macro, along with various aftermarket lenses with which I'm not familiar.

 

If you're simply wanting to explore close-up photography on a budget, then David LaHeist's suggestion about extension tubes is a very good one; this will produce reasonably good magnifications with your FD 50mm f/1.8 lens (probably 1:1 in some cases), although you'll have to bear in mind that the FD 50mm f/1.8 lens does not incorporate some of the optical corrections that the dedictated FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro lens does, so your results under some conditions may not be as good. If you go this route, and have an FD-mount camera with programmed AE and/or shutter-priority AE, try to find an extension tube or tube set that has automatic diaphragm control so that you can continue to utilize the automatic aperture control provided by the camera.

 

Another low-cost solution is the use of what's called a "close-up lens." This is basically a magnifying lens installed into a filter ring. The idea here is to screw this thing onto the filter ring of your lens and create a budget macro lens. Again, results will be OK, but probably not as good as with a dedicated macro lens. However, it will get you decent magnifications depending on the power of the close-up lens.

 

Any of these solutions should get you magnifications similar (if not better) than reverse-mounting your FD 50mm f/1.8 lens, and will be simpler to deal with. Image quality with one of these alternatives should be at least as good as reverse-mounting the FD 50mm f/1.8 lens.

 

I think you may have already contacted me off forum, but I've got a few of these gizmos (automatic extension tubes, close-up lenses, FD 50mm f/3.5 Macro lens) to sell; perhaps we should talk again?

Hello All,

 

Thank you for your responses to my inquiry. I think at this stage I will seek out a 50mm extension tube to use with my 50mm f/1.8. If anyone knows where to find an affordable one, please let me know.

 

Thanks.