Reverse Ring macro
Before I bought my DSLR, I was always intrigued by macro photography, and the detail in some of the shots I came across on the web. I told myself that this would be the primary focus of my photography should I eventually buy some gear.
After shakily finding my feet after the camera purchase, I started investigating macro lenses, settling on the Canon 100mm F2.8 for around R6500 ($1000). Now I could get close to the action. It’s a great lens if you have the megapixels to compliment it. But I wanted more…so a chance encounter in a photographic retailer saw me leaving with a set of extension tubes, my credit card taking the brunt of the R1700 ($270) transaction. I was now even closer to the action.
Trawling through the photographic sites and forums one evening led to an interesting site discussing reversing rings. A reversing ring, simply put, is a ring adapter with thread on one side to mount your lens to, and the other side has the standard fitting to mount to your camera. Obviously different lenses have different diameters so you either need the correct ring for the specific lens you want to use, or you need a step-up, or step-down ring to compensate.
Mounting a lens to your camera in this way leaves you with an extremely shallow depth of field, and an inoperative autofocus.
I did a test after I bought one online for R65 ($10)…
- First pic below is using the bog standard 18-55mm kit lens at 55mm.
- second one is the 100mm macro lens
- third is the macro with the whole set of extension tubes
- and last is the reversing ring at 18mm.
18mm means you are hovering your lens about 5mm from the subject, so you need lots of light, and a steady hand. I doubt that any insects you are trying to photograph will hang around with a lens that close to them. Anyway, this is a low cost solution that can get you some great shots, but mainly of still life unless you have steady hands, and can manually focus fast on moving subjects.
Good luck…
(For better viewing, click the ‘FS’ at the bottom right of the gallery.)
