I recently purchased a reversing mount for my 18-55mm Kit lens, now that I have replaced it with a 17-55mm F/2.8 lens.
I’ve been messing with it recently and finally have some pretty decent shots to show off. It’s been really hard using the reversing mount, the DOF ( depth of field ) is extremely shallow when using the default f/3.5. However, today I figured out how to close the aperture down to F/16 while the lens was reversed. It offers a bit more play with the DOF and makes it a lot easier to get those difficult macro shots. Of course, the downside to that is that the shot needs a LOT more light entering the lens. Luckily, it’s very sunny outside today.
Anyways, enough with the tech-talk, let’s get to the photos.
5 Comments
Wow, Zack. These are really awesome.
Thank you, I’m glad you like them =)
Macro is a completely different world, everything is so ethereal at such a smaller scale.
I love the dragonfly one. Its nifty, you can see all of its photo receptive units.
a good cheap way to do the reverse macro thing with aperture control is to get a cheap old manual focus 50mm lens. How did you get that dragon fly to sit still? Nice to see you ventured over to the macro world.
Matt,
I’ve found that having the ability to change the focal distance is quite nice, especially for the more timid subjects that don’t like the lens right up in their face.
I believe I used 50mm for this shot, because it allows for a further distance, but less of a magnification. At 18mm a millimeter blows up the frame, I probably could have got this things individual ommatidia. Unfortunately, this dragonfly was rather timid and kept flying away, so I shot from a bit further and he finally decided to sit still.
The world of macro is a ethereal one, it’s amazing some of the things you can see at such a huge magnification. It’s been fun so far.
Thanks everyone for the comments!