extreme closeup on the cheap!!

[LaNeK779]

Hi all, a couple of interesting links if you ever need to get (very!) close and personal with your models. The cost is minimal (below 10usd) and the materials needed are everywhere to be found ("fleabay" for example)

The basic idea is to mount an adapter to the filter thread of your lens and mount the lens backwards on your camera. This yields high magnification and lets you shoot from a couple of centimeters (or inches) away from the subject.

For even higher magnification, you can use a male-to-male adapter, mount one lens as you would normally on your camera and another one reversed in front of the first lens. This is slightly more complex, let's you shoot almost touching the object and the results are wonderful, if you can hit the razor thin focus area.


These are some of the many links that explain things much better than I do, hope you find them useful.

http://digital-photography-school.com/reverse-mounting-your-prime-lenses-for-affordable-macro-photography/

http://www.eos-magazine.com/articles/macro/reversevision.html

In the below set up is my camera with a 200mm tele and a 58mm normal reversed in front of it, using a male-to-male 58mm to 52mm adapter. As these are old style 35mm lenses mounted on a digital micro four thirds camera, the focal lengths of the lenses are effectively doubled (crop factor and all). So it is like mounting an 116 fl lens reversed in front of a 400 fl lens. This setup allowed me to take pictures of laser inscribed numbers on a gemstone, that were smaller than 80um (1 micrometer = 0.001 millimeters, so we are talking really small here, I suppose no sane modeler would want to do that)

[Pgtaylorart]

Sounds very interesting. Can you post some photos that we're shot using this technique?

Thanks,
George

[Des]

It sounds like a really good idea, but I don't think I would want to get photos that close to my models 

The macro setting on my camera allows me to get as close as 1cm (10mm) which to me is very close.

Des.

[LaNeK779]

In that case Des it is really close already and nothing more is needed.
My basic 14-140 lens has a minimum focus distance of 31cm when set wide, and double that at full tele.
My cellphone needs around 10cm to focus

As I don't want to spent the money on a dedicated macro lens that will see limited use, this is a very good alternative.

I will try and post a couple of pics with a modelling theme as soon as time allows

[LaNeK779]

ok, it took me some time to find the time, but i have four examples below.

I took a photo of the PE fret from an 1/48 kit. My 14-140 lens at the tele end let me go as close as 50cm and took photo number one below.



then i used a male-to-male adapter ring and i attached a 58mm lens reversed in front of it. the following three pics were taken.





notice on the last photo how narrow the focus area is. from the word "eindecker" only the "d" is in focus. that is how narrow it is, so most times it is convenient to keep the camera stationary and slide the object back and forth to get focus just right.



lighting issues were solved by a simple table lamp close by. Notice the vignetting (black corners) in the last three photos, this happens as the field of view of the 58 lens interferes with the field of view of my 14-140 lens

i hope this conveys the general idea and more people experiment with it