Getting your Macro On- Single lens Reverse Macro Ring adapters

Something about macro photography is captivating and stunning. However, traditional macro lenses can be super expensive, and just not a practical investment for someone who just wants to occasional take these kind of pictures, or just as a hobby. In this guide and a little help from digital-photography-school.com with lessons on close-up and macro photography by Andrew S Gibson, I'm going to cover how to use a single reverse macro ring to use an 18-55mm lens as a macro.

If you already own a 50mm prime or standard kit lens (around 18-55mm focal length range) then reverse lens macro is also the least expensive way there is to get up close.

The reverse lens technique involves turning the lens around so that the rear element points outwards, and the front element faces the camera body. You can buy special adapters to attach the reversed lens to either your camera body or another lens.

Single lens reverse macro

For my experiment I used a Fotodiox reverse 52mm macro ring for a nikon camera. You can buy these adapters inexpensively from Amazon or eBay. One side screws into the end of your lens like a filter, the other attaches to your camera’s lens mount.

The photo above shows how it works.

This technique works well if you have a lens with a manual aperture ring. Depth-of-field decreases as you get closer to your subject, and at the high magnifications obtained by reversing a 50mm lens, you need to stop down to increase the zone of sharpness.

If your reversed lens doesn’t have a manual aperture ring, you can’t stop down and are forced to work at the maximum aperture of your lens. However, don’t let this stop you trying out this technique. I did! and there's a couple of tricks I figured out to get it just right.

1. Make sure your camera is sitting in a sturdy flat surface or you have a tripod that is really sturdy. This prevents any camera shake you might get when holding the camera. Because your shooting so close and such a small subject, any camera shake is going to have devastating results on sharpness and clarity.

2. Use a remote trigger or wire trigger. Using these will further eliminate camera shake or movement while taking your shot. You be surprised how even just pushing your finger down on the shutter release button can throw off your whole shot.

3. Without a manual aperture ring, getting your subject in focus can be tricky. Also because your camera is not "reading" your lens. instead of using the focus ring the gain focus, i keep the focal length of the lens at 18mm the whole time, and move the camera back and forth by hand.