i've seen some people mounting a lens in the reverse direction,using an adapter ring in a japanese photographic magazine. What's the purpose? Is there anyone has any experience with this? thanks

-- legnum (legnum212@email.com), February 18, 2002

Answers

Mounting a normal (eg: 50mm lens) backwards in order to do macro photography is not a new method, actually. It's quite an old technique. Useful for getting a subject closer to the lens than it is to the film.

However, this technique was useful in the days of old mechanical cameras which lacked electromechanical systems. EOS cameras can't open the shutter diaphragm without electrical contacts, so reversing lenses is a problem unless you want to shoot wide open.

Novaflex do sell a reversing adapter which has a bunch of contacts and a ribbon cable to let you reverse an EOS lens, but it's an incredibly expensive accessory.

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), February 19, 2002.

Most lenses are designed to be their sharpest when the distance behind the lens (distance from lens to the film) is shorter than the distance in front of the lens (distance from lens to subject). When you focus a lens very close with extension tubes and get the magnification to 1:1 or higher the lens will perform better when reverse mounted. With the adapters required you usually get fairly high magnification without and more extension tubes.

This is difficult to do with EOS lenses because as soon as you take the rear of the lens off the camera mount you loose the abillity to to set the aperture. There are work arounds. You can set the aperture and stop it down with depth of field preview, remove your camera battery before it opens up again, remove the lens and reverse mount it, then take the picture.

Or you can get a special adapter system for EOS that has an extension cord for the electronics, a camera mount on one end of it, and a lens mount on the other. Can't remember who made that thing, but it wasn't Canon.

It's probably easier just to use an old manual lens for this though. I have seen several adapters for this. They usually involve an EOS to T mount or M42 mount adapter and then a reversing ring. Of couse you would have to get and carry the old manual lens with you.

I thought about doing this, but decided that the cheap Vivitar 100mm f/3.5 macro for EOS was a better way to get macro focusing for the few times I want it.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), February 19, 2002.

Ahhh, NK Guy beat me to it. And Novaflex was the name I couldn't remember.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), February 19, 2002.

Hi Jim,

Try Novoflex instead of novaflex.

-- Julian Loke (elan7e-owner@yahoogroups.com), February 19, 2002.

You are getting all this great advice from the serious photographers, now I am just going to throw in the amature 2 cents.....

They are absolutely correct that what you were seeing is a very old fashioned trick to take close ups.

If you want to get that close and don't want to spend a fortune, I have had very good luck with the Kenko (I think that was it, if I am wrong, I am close on the name) extention tubes. They come in a three set (three different sizes) and you can stack them if you need serious power.

Only downside is that the more powerful you make them the closer you have to be to your subject, this often means that you yourself start to block the light.

Just my amature 2 cents.

-J

-- Jonathan A. Papillo (papillo-j@erols.com), February 19, 2002.

Here's another amature's 2-cents' worth for ya. Instead of using my EOS 650 for macro work, I use one of my older Pentax's for the job. I have a helicoid extension tube which is basically an extension tube that adjusts in and out. My two Pentax's are P3-n's, about the same vintage as my 650, but these cameras were not as techno, meaning they have no support for auto-focus and the lenses for them have their own apature rings. With TTL, everything on manual, no problems. My advice, if you don't want a seperate camera system for macro shots, is to buy a dedicated macro lense, like the 100mm -- which will cost you about the same price as another camera system! But, by all means, DON'T buy a zoom lense with a 'macro' setting. You'll be disappointed.

-- David Harrison (david_harrison@ci.carson-city.nv.us), February 19, 2002.

Yes. Novoflex. Oops. Here's a photo of their adapter, with a detailed writeup. Unfortunately, it's in German, which won't help you if you don't speak it.

http://www.weihenstephan.org/~joachenk/ makrozoom.html

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), February 20, 2002.

You could try a close up filter for about £20, or go for a Cosina 100mm f3.5, which you can buy for about £120.00 from various retailers. For the money it's rated as a reasonable consumer macro lens.

-- canonlover (canoneosd60@aol.com), February 20, 2002.