Macro Photography without macro lens
Often photo lovers, photo artists try to catch a macro object and share their views to their friends, relatives and others. But the most common thing for macro photography is a macro lens. I prefer Tokina 100mm f/2.8 D is the best choice for macro photography.
Suppose you visit a place and forget to take you macro lens or budget does not permit to buy a new macro lens, you can follow the trick with your usual zoom kit lens. But it is little bit critical and need practice.
Just take off your lens and hold it in front of the camera body. Yes……….you can get a macro lens.
Four things you have to keep in mind using the trick.
- Camera should be reset with manual mode
- The best focal length seem to be around 50mm so, choose a 50mm prime or 18-55mm kit lens.
- Focus the subject by moving closer or further away because auto focus won’t work.
- The camera cannot open the aperture. So, open it manually with your hand. A plastic nozzle near the mount on the camera helps you to open the full aperture. Do it manually.
Important note on macro photography without macro lens:
More sharpen picture, you can buy a reverse lens mount which hold the lens more solid and firm.
Be sure to use a tripod. Concentrate on the tiny movement of the subject and camera otherwise it will destroy the sharpness.
The first one is taken 50mm prime with f/4.5 where as the second one with reverse lens and fully opened aperture manually.
Happy clicking, happy sharing
I would like to add few things –
1. switch off both focus assist and metering. If focus assist is not switched off, camera wont capture image.
2. Aperture,need to be stopped down. Better to use lenses having aperture rings ( these are very cheap as they are from the old generation, you can easily find one from ebay at cheap prices)
3. Use narrow apertures like f/8 etc (as the DOF is very narrow) and add light ( using a table lamp, or buy a normal holder, a 200W incandescent bulb and a pug, should be about 150 INR).
4. Not a healthy practice, use this technique only within the room. Some people blindly advocate for this method as seen in the discussions in story teller posts. But these guys never shot a photo at narrow apertures like landscapes. If you have sensor dust when you shoot above f/11 and upwards, speckles appear on the image which is actually sensor dust. That will spoil the image a lot. So lens reversal shall be done only indoors and that too in very clean environment.
5. There is another use of this technique. Just remove the lens, keep it in front of the camera body and move the front of the lens to get funny distortions and bokeh. ( again – manual mode/ switch off metering and focus assist)
regards
Vijith
It’s a very satisfying writing for all photography learner just like me.
Thank you very much writer for this.
I just want to add here one more point.
If anyone want to click any kind of specific subject (i.e. flowers,fly,insects etc),change the focus point of the camera as single focus point.
It will present you more sharper photo.
Try it and Enjoy.. :D
eta asadharan concept sir.ata experiment korboi.