http://mothman.efx3.com/2009/09/18/g...a-at-last/

The Slothful Moth wakes from his slumber! =)

I know, amazing, right?

Anyway...

The other day, an online friend of mine, Matt (of Geeks R Us fame) was asking me about lenses, and his desire to find a way to get a decent macro lens, at a decent price.

After some round about, back and forth online conversation, we came to the conclusion that he was going to probably have to spend a bit more than he wanted... but that the result would be much better (vs totally cheaping out with some low-end close-up filters, or the like).

So, OK, that was that.

Matt then spent a bit of time perusing more online lens information sites, and came across some info about Canons awesome, but cheap-like-borscht, 50mm f/1.8 prime lens, which is a great little lens.

Part of what he read about was a person reversing the lens on their SLR. Matt mentioned that to me, in passing, at which point I replied, oh yeah, that's true, it's an interesting way to get some macro action using an existing non-macro lens... and you can do it with basically ANY lens.

So, I gave Matt a few more details on how to do it in a completely ghetto way, requiring no new equipment, and he proceed to try it out. (see his blog, linked earlier, for examples)

Well, I decided to share the knowledge here, as well, for those interested, who may not have realized this is possible.

Before I explain it, just a few noteworthy... ermm... notes.

1 - this is, as I said, a very ghetto way to achieve macro. The results will not compare to a real, decent quality, macro lens. Image quality will be iffy, at best.

2 - this involves using your camera with the lens detached, so try to do it in an area that's NOT chock-o-block full of floating dust, unless you like cleaning dust spots out of your camera.

3 - depending on the lens you use, you might be VERY close to the subject when your doing this... like, a matter of inches, so be careful, as the electrical connections of your lens will be pointing forward, so don't smash the lens into anything. lol


So, on with the details... and I'll start with a sample of what can be achieved.

This first shot is taken with my Canon 30D, and 50mm f/1.8 lens, uncropped, resized for the web. (I was shooting at f/1.8, hence the shallow depth of focus)




Not at all macro, right?


This next shot is with the same camera, same lens, but with the lens reversed.




Now we're talking!

The following two shots are 100% crops of the above two images.

- standard:




- lens reversed:




So... now that you've seen what can be done, how do you do it?

Simple, really... just reverse your lens.

Remove the lens from the camera... flip it around... and hold it back up to the camera backwards... forward facing end pressed against the cameras lens mount... back end (with the connection, electrical contact, etc) facing forward.

You can buy reversing rings, that mount onto the camera, and then you screw the lens into that ring, using the lens' filter-mounting threads. This allows you to achieve the reversal without having to physically hold the lens in place.

But, lacking the reversal ring, you can still do it just by holding everything in place.

What this does, is allow you to move much closer to the subject, and achieve focus.

Whereas the 50mm, in standard use, allows me to get no closer than a couple feet from the subject and still achieve focus, with a magnification of about 0.15X (the image projected on the sensor is about 0.15 X the actual size of the actual object) ... by reversing the lens, I'm able to get within a few inches of the subject and have focus. I don't know exactly what the magnification is with the lens reversed, but it looks very close to 1X (ie. life-size)

Now, keep in mind... the lens has no communication with the camera when it's reversed. That means:

1 - no autofocus

2 - no electronic aperture control


Focus can be achieved via manual focus, or simply by moving the camera/lens closer or further from the subject.

Aperture control is trickier. If you happen to have an old lens with a manual aperture control ring, you can stop down the lens that way. But, if you have a newer lens without that control, you're kind of stuck using whatever the lenses maximum (wide open) aperture is. That's great for letting in light, but might make for shallow depth of field, as in my examples (using an f/1.8 lens).

There is a workaround... if your camera has a 'depth of field preview' button, you can mount the lens normally, dial down the aperture, press/hold the depth of field preview button, and remove the lens while doing so. I'm not sure what effect this would have, long term, on the lens or camera though, so do it at your own risk. I've tried it, and it worked, but I don't know if I'd want to do it a lot.

I've also tried reversing a zoom lens, and it works just fine with that lens too. I used a 17-85mm lens, and the result was fine, except at the short zoom range, I had to get VERY close to the subject to achieve focus... like almost touching the lens to the object. The result was a larger-than-real-life image, though.

Anyhoo... now you know.

As you can see in the 100% crop of the reversed-lens image above, the quality isn't great. That's partly due to me hand-holding the camera (which made steady focus a bit of a challenge) and partly (a large part) due to the fact that lenses aren't made to be used backwards. lol

But, in a pinch, it'll work... and if you enjoy playing around with experimental photography kinda stuff, it can be a lot of fun.

So, if anyone reading this decides to try it out, do me a favour, and drop a link to the results in the comments, as I'd like to see what you've done. :)

After having uploaded the smoke photos (see my previous post) to my Flickr photostream, today I got a request from an editor at NowPublic.com (a user-submitted current events / news site).

I thought that was pretty cool... it's basically just one random person deciding that they like my one random photo... but cool, none the less for someone to notice it. :)

NowPublic.com (at the moment my photo is listed on the front page as a "editors Pick)


Photo Gallery (at the moment, my photo is the first on in the gallery)

The area where I live is, this year, hot and dry... like usual. But it's somewhat hotter... and drier... than normal, and there's fires as a result.

There have been 3 major fires in the area over the last few days, with people being evacuated, unfortunately 3 homes have burned down. Nowhere near where we live, they are across the lake, but still definitely impacts us, if in no other way than the constant smoke in the air these days.

The two nearest fires (the ones more threatening to homes), the crews are getting the upper hand on them, and people have been allowed home.

But the remaining one, which is furthest from homes (though there have still been a few people evacuated) is still raging, and growing all the time. Last time I heard it's about 2 square kilometers in size now, and the smoke from this fire... well, it sort of looks like a volcano erupting.

I took a few shots of it tonight from the park down the road from our place.

**(Please click the photos for the full-sized view, for best quality)**

Just a few photos, for a Wordless Monday.


... wait... those were words, weren't they? >_<


View On Black




View On Black




View On Black