How do you reverse your lens for pictures

[stevestuff]

I have seen some macro photos. In the details for these pictures

they say that they reversed their lens. How do you do that?

[godfrey]

There are a couple of ways that lenses can be used reversed for macrophotography.

 

The basic method is with SLR interchangeable lens cameras: you can reverse a lens by

buying the appropriate reversing ring adapter that has the camera's bayonet mount on one

side and a threaded ring the size of a lens' filter thread on the other. You screw the ring

into a lens filter threads then mount it on a bellows or extension tube to effect a great deal

of lens extension and very good flat-field correction.

 

Another common technique for three-dimensional macrophotography is to fit a relatively

long telephoto lens to the camera in the normal way, say 135-200mm focal length, and

then use a male-male reversing ring with a 50mm normal lens mounted on the tele's filter

ring. This effectively makes the highly corrected 50mm normal lens into a very high quality

+12-20 diopter close-up lens, allowing more working room and better perspective for

small subjects, and getting around the close focus limitations of most telephotos. This

latter technique also works well for fixed lens digital cameras with zoom lenses.

 

The caution if you want to try it is to be sure that you adequately support the reversed lens

mounted on your camera's primary lens ... You don't want to damage the zoom lens with a

heavy lens mounted via the filter ring, particularly a zoom lens with a telescoping section.

 

Godfrey

[walter_degroot]

because of a misunderstanding on the seller's part I got a "so-called" rare . 135mm short barrel lens and telextender for $10.00

it is a miranda brand lens, but has a t-2 adapter so it could be used on any brand camera. it permits a fair working distance from subject to camera. it permits infinity focuc so any range can be dealt with, Tho I don't know why it would be used in that manner.

the 135mm lens is simpler and is not hard to design or manufacture for good optical correction. the field, i believe would be flatter and more linear than a 50mm lens, I do not know if other brands offered such a lens.

[rayfraser]

On my $10 Dakota digital, I simply unscrewed the lens, wrapped a 1/2 inch piece of plastic around it, then some black electrical tape and placed it back on top of the imager. This allowed me to double the magnification as can be seen in the two images of a dime in my portfolio.

[franka t.l.]

I do my fair amount of Macro, and there's several way of dealing with reversing the lens.

 

First and foremost, you must have a system SLR and know the Mount type and the lens filter thread ( Usually you want to reverse mount a highly corrected lens like your 50mm, but occassionally you might want something else )

 

Now you need a way to fix the lens to the body rigid with plano paralell alignment. Here comes the reverse adeptor which have a bayonet fitting on one end to fit to your body and a screw ( Male ) fitting on the other where you screw your lens in Filter side. Now you have a fix focus fix Mag ratio macro setup. If you should need more, you would need to add extension tube or Bellow in between the Adeptor and the body. Now the trick is you need to have a very sturby tripod and a nice lighting setup to give you enough light to shoot and focus

 

My typical macro ( more than life size setup are

 

- Pentax SP-II + 2X Extension tube + M42 / 49mm Reverse adeptor + 50/3.5 Tessar ( setup & fixed in that order )

 

- Arex MLU Body + Bellow + P6 / 58mm Reverse adeptor + 80/2.8 Biometar

 

And then there are various combination in between