Banish perfectly-framed macros - they're boring!
Lose the idea that vignetting is bad!
Include the rim of your lens in the image!
Down with expensive closeup kits!
Make your lenses go where they haven't gone before!
Give your hands and elbows a good workout!
Try and beat my pics if you think this is easy!
Ahh, cut it out and let's just have some fun!
Mount your zoom lens on your D70 and zoom all the way to the max. For those with the kit lens, this means 70mm. Adjust your aperture to anything bigger than F8, that means F10, F11, F16, whatever.
Take out your 2nd, shorter focal length lens. 50mm is perfect - it'll be much better than a closeup filter optically. 28mm may yield WILD results. Nowhereatoll should try out his 15mm fisheye. Must be a prime lens, I think. But if you can get the same results with a short zoom, do it and show us that it can be done! Adjust the aperture to the smallest value, or largest opening. For the 50mm this would be 1.8 or 1.4. Set the focus to the shortest distance. Some would dispute that and say it should be infinity. Well, I'm ready to learn what the correct setting should be. Reverse this second lens onto the first lens, front element, touching front element. Be careful not to scratch your lens. If you have reverse-ring adaptor, great. I didn't, I don't even know how it looks like, so I supported the second lens with my hands. Be careful not to press the elements together too hard, in order to allow the first lens to AF in and out smoothly.
If you need to use the popup flash go ahead. The resulting lighting was uneven, but I think it gave an interesting effect. Shoot 100 pics if needed. Use your SB-800 or SB-600, that'll work great, I think. Plants and immobile bugs are relatively easy to do. No way this combo can be used on jumping spiders and active insects. I'd like to be proven wrong, though :-)).
Out of that 100 pics, show us your best 1, 2, 10 or 100. I'd love to see what you've come up with. I think we would then appreciate the convenience macro lenses offer us after this exercise.
Below are 2 examples. I reversed my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 onto my Sigma 18-50. Sharpness is excellent. The rest are at http://www.fotop.net/dlcmh/dlcmh48
http://www.fotop.net/albums/dlcmh/dlcmh48/DSC_4876.jpg
http://www.fotop.net/albums/dlcmh/dlcmh48/DSC_4878.jpg
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Regards, David
(D.7.0. & C.P.4.5.0.0.)
http://www.fotop.net/dlcmh/
http://www.pbase.com/dlcmh
http://www.pbase.com/dlcmh/dslr_links
