[lightpainter]

Last year whilst I was on holiday I dropped my camera breaking the stock lens, the mount pulled away from the barrel breaking the focus and aperture connections and the hoya filter glass was smashed, fortunately the actual lens elements where still OK!
After reading Werewolf 40’s thread he said that you can reverse mount a lens to get macro shots, being a tight old bugger I thought that there must be a way to utilise my broken lens!
I used the body cap that fits on the camera when you have no lens mounted, drilled a hole in it and stuck the Hoya filter ring directly to it with epoxy glue.

A few shot using this setup!

All photos clickable to see a larger version!

[noidea]

excellent

[BananaTiger]

Wow, the results are not too shabby!

[Tobers]

Ha! Not bad at all

[T0MAT01]

It's not often that droppng a lens is a good thing, but I think that last wasp shot is fantastic so well done for dropping it!!

[pixelpixel]

Thats clever and also a bit crazy. Just think how many people just bin the lens

[RandomLee]

That's awesome you managed to rescue an otherwise broken lens! Great shots too!

[vulkan75]

thats bonkers....and at the same time brilliant.

Can you give us more details....Like what was the focal length before and what is it essentially now?
The images are lovely and sharp with a sweet soft bokah...how does that compare to how it performed before? How close can you focus this way?

I have a spare nifty fifty...if I were to reverse mount it What would I effectively get macro wise?

ANyway sorry for the Q's but Im impressed...great recovery

[lightpainter]

Originally Posted by vulkan75

thats bonkers....and at the same time brilliant.

Can you give us more details....Like what was the focal length before and what is it essentially now?
The images are lovely and sharp with a sweet soft bokah...how does that compare to how it performed before? How close can you focus this way?

I have a spare nifty fifty...if I were to reverse mount it What would I effectively get macro wise?

ANyway sorry for the Q's but Im impressed...great recovery

The lens was a bog standard 18-55 kit lens that came with my 20D, I understand the a nifty fifty works well in reverse, probably better than a zoom as it’s a fixed focal length, as it is I have to set the focus and move the camera in and out to achieve a sharp picture!
I’m afraid I have no idea of the technical aspects of reversing a lens, I just utilised what I had!
You do need a lot of patience and steady hands as all your shot are invariably hand held!

[lightpainter]

This macro reverse lens setup has given me a new lease of life, I had been a bit down in the dumps in my attitude to photography looking at all the fantastic offerings from all members and thinking there’s no point in submitting any of mine up against you lot!
But now I’m getting really enthusiastic again with these macro shots!
Here’s just one more.

Ten shots all hand held, focus stacked with an evaluation copy of Helicon Focus.

C&C welcome please, if you have any advice, as I know a lot of you are excellent macro shooters!

[Mike.P®]

Not sure how I missed this thread.
The wasp is absolutely superb imo, focus is spot on for me (I always go for the eyes). I downloaded the original off your flickr and its great.
I think the focus is just ever so slightly out on the last shot, I must admit Im not a great fan of focus stacking but then thats because when I tried it the shot looked a bloody mess.

As for setting the focus and moving the camera in and out, that's how I do all my macro shots, I dont even possess a auto focus macro lens.

Does the aperture still work the same way (I presume manually though) on the lens?