What's a reverse Lens??? (attn: tchuanye & others)

[icecube4u]

I have a Canon EOS 30D Camera Kit with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens. I am an amatuer and really interested in Macro Photography. I have read references of a "Reverse Lens" being used as an alternative to "expensive" macro lenses. What is this Reverse lens and could i do something with the equipment i have (or maybe a minimal addition of some converters or something to the kit i have?).

"tchuanye" - It's basically your fault that i am hooked onto this. Man you have such great pics with your "reverse lens".

[sumball]

It simply means u mount one lens normally and reversely mount another lens to your lens face to face using a both male end ring. Ideally, mount a longer lens eg 100mm and the reverse lens is the shorter than 100mm lens eg 50mm. By doing so, you should be able to get 2:1. If 100mm with 25mm, you will get 4:1 and so on.

Bear in mind that, a prime lens is advisable because of its quality. The longer your normal mounted lens couple with the shortest reversed lens with give you the highest magnificatioin and also remember that the DOF will be very very shallow.

To get even higher mag ratio, try reverse mount a video lens... accroding to John Shaw.

That's it!

Regards
CM

[tltan]

yah, tchuanye pics are fantabulously good.

Anyway, to answer you, do a search on google to see how its set up.

Briefly, buy a 50mm lens f1.8 will do. cheap for canon about $120-130 i think.
Buy a coupler, third party or original..dont know how much for canon. basically, you reverse the 50mm instead of the conventional mount on. Therefore, you need a ring to screw to the screw threads of the lens (where you normally have a uv filter on). and that ring (coupler or reversal ring its called), is used to mount on to your camera body.

Thats all. But minor details of how to set it up, look at some online pictures or tchuanye website to see it. Also, not to forget, you lose all metering as the lens is placed opposite. =)

Have fun!

Regards,
tltan

[sumball]

I thin kthe metering is still there, jsut could not AF.

[icecube4u]

I googled and most of the explanations were not in "english" (if you know what i mean). Well, Sunball & tltan; your words did get some sense into me on this topic.

Thanks for the help here.........

[cerebrus]

Originally Posted by sumball I thin kthe metering is still there, jsut could not AF.

Yeah metering is still fine. Some lenses even have an apeture ring. For manual focus is still best for macro.

[tltan]

I think canon bodies have metering but only certain nikon bodies have metering...D70s and D50 wont have metering. Pardon me if I am wrong.

[Qazwer]

Hi bro,

Reverse mount is only a term used a normal mount lens is mounted reversed.

What sumball explain was call stacked mount, which means mount a lens reversed onto a normal mounted lens onto the camera body.

<Camera> + <Tele-lens> + <Coupler - male to male> + <normal lens mounted reversed - prefer for wider angle for bigger mag.>

There's another traditional way of mounting, which is to reverse mount the lens directly onto the body itself.
<Camera> + <Reverse mount adapter> + <normal lens mounted reversed - prefer for wider angle for bigger mag.>

Also, there are many many ways of doing macro photography.
- Using Bellows
- Using tubes
- Using a Macro enable lens
- combination of the above
- Using closeup filters & achromatic lens on tele-lens

Of course for DOF control on reverse mount with adapter, I would suggest you to get a manual lens so that you can control the aperture size manually.

If you choose to use a stack mount method, open up the aperture of lens that is mounted reverse to the fullest and control your DOF using your tele-lens.

This is to my knowledge. Hope it helps. Expert can correct me if I'm wrong.

[sumball]

I would say your explanation is very detailed and informative Qazwer.

Yup, what I said is also called "stacked lenses" method which give better magnification ratio as compare to just one lens mounted reversely onto the camera mount.

[tanhb]

Is this what u want?

http://www.naturephotosociety.org.sg...Date=1/10/2005

[Qazwer]

Originally Posted by tanhb Is this what u want? http://www.naturephotosociety.org.sg...Date=1/10/2005

hey bro, just about to post this thread also. Actaully tchuanye sent to me too.

icecube4u,
by the way, this is the combination examples.

[tchuanye]

I think most of the points have been covered.

What Qazwer said and the link by tanhb explain one method where the lens is coupled directly to the camera. I have no experience in it and Qazwer have been shooting in this mode in his recent few posts.

Another method is what sumball said, where the reverse lens is mounted on an existing lens. In a way similar to my Prosumer FZ10 and P&S camera, it serves as a high powered Close up lens.
Thus, it is good to choose a fast lens with the largest apeture opening so that there would be less vignetting.

Actually, I cannot advice on reverse lens on DSLR as I have not tried it myself. The rest may be able to advise better.

[Jayson_Ang]

Originally Posted by tanhb Is this what u want? http://www.naturephotosociety.org.sg...Date=1/10/2005

Hey thanks for the link!

[icecube4u]

Qawzer, Sumball, tanhb, tchuanye - Appreciate all of your detailed inputs, URLs & tips a lot. The have been a lot of help and hopefully i should be able to take some shots and will share them with you later for C'nC.

Thanks a lot agian guys to take time for answering my query here.

Regards

[Qazwer]

No problem bro, I'm also learner here.