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Reversing 50mm?

Started Feb 12, 2022 | Questions thread
(unknown member) Senior Member • Posts: 1,684
Re: Reverse-Lens Macro

Macro guy wrote:

I prefer mounting the reversed lens on a bellows. I find that type of a setup gives me the greatest flexibility. I can change my magnification with a given lens (within that lens' focal length parameters) and I can focus without changing my magnification.

Here's what my setup looks like. It's not the greatest pic, I took it with my phone, but you get the gist.

Our setups are similar, except mine is more for the field than the studio. It'd be pretty difficult to hand-hold that set-up. I think a bellows is really only necessary for super-high magnification, again in the studio, which is all but impossible to get on live subjects, especially in the field.

I do much more field work than studio shots, and I only shoot live subjects, preferably in their natural environment. My studio set up is pretty complicated, if I find uncooperative subjects in nature that require studio placement. But it's such a hassle, that I never bother with it much anymore.

Here's my field setup, for live subjects, using reverse-macro:

Zoom Nikkor AI-S 28-85mm f/3.5-4.5 AI-S reverse-mounted on D500

The diffused flash is not shown.

The reversed-zoom lens is capable of going from .25 to 2.9x. Even when I used to shoot the MPE 65, I rarely went over 3x, so shooting @ 4-5x is of no real interest to me.

If I have an immobile subject, like a crab spider, I'll use the tripod + macro rails to develop stacks, but not the flash. I prefer natural light, wherever possible.

However, if I have a moving subject, like a jumping spider or other, then I just unsnap the camera from the tripod and deploy the camera + flash handheld, stopping down for DOF, rather than stacking.

These days, I've replaced reverse-lens macro with Laowa macro optics. Still, I enjoy reverse-macro photography for fun sometimes, but the Laowa glass is pretty good.

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Please forgive: I use voice text, so there may be typos. Hopefully it still makes sense
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