Reverse Mounting Your Lens

OK .. for those of you who have been ( somewhat ) following my macro quest for the Mrs. ...

A few weeks back, I bought her the bronze version of the D5200 with the 18-55mm kit lense and the 55-200mm lens. She like to take close up picks of her babies ( birds, dogs, and fish ) and has been using the 18-55mm regularly. Just recently, I purchased her some extension tubes; which she has put on I believe, but not 100% sure the 20mm and 36mm together with the 18-55mm. Pictures are coming out great .. the autofocus feature does not work with the extension tubes, so she has been manually focusing under 'Aperture Priority'.

She has been, like me, doing some reading and came across the concept of 'Reverse Mounting your Lens'. It is suppose to get you extremely close to your 'macro' subject. My question is .. 'How do you reverse mount a lens?'

I look at both side of the bayonets .. first the lens then the camera and cannot, for the life of me, figure out how this is done? Are 'prime' lenses that much different, or is there a special adapter you need in order to reverse mount any lens?

For the moderators .. I'm placing this question under the D5200 section since it deals with our D5200s. If it does not belong here, please feel free to move it to the proper location and advise me accordingly.

As always .. eaceful:

Michael

You can find "reverse adapters" that screw in like a filter on the front of your lens. This adapter will have a mount for the camera and you reverse the lens. I have a 52mm adapter for my 18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses. I've used them with film cameras, also. I tend to fabricate an extension tube and add some close-up filters also. With the shallow DOF, I'll stop down to f22 and let the camera choose the exposure for the type of lighting I have on the subject. About 3-8 seconds, so you really want a tri-pod.

I have dabbled in reverse lens macro but I would definitely purchase a dedicated macro lens if I could afford one. Reverse macro takes too much effort on anything that moves or is in changing light or winds.

The lens itself, if it is a "G" lens, has to be temporarily "modified" to hold the aperture blades wide open as there is no way to control aperture with the camera. You have to focus by moving the camera closer or farther away and that usually means moving the tripod as well. The camera also has no metering capability with a reverse lens.

It can work but its far from ideal.

The image below was taken with a reversed 80-200mm lens with macro reverse ring adapter lit with LED lights. The actual sizze of the flowers are less than the diameter of a dime coin.

Wide-Angle lenses were the most popular to reverse mount because the retro-focus optics acted as "magnifying optics" when reversed. The 24/2.8 was a popular lens for this.

You will need a lens with a aperture ring on it. It was also popular to put an extension tube on the mount-end of the lens so you could actuate the aperture.

With the reversing ring, you are going to get really close. The first shot is my 35-70mm using a small bic lighter. Second shot is same lens with an older manual 50mm/1.4 lens reversed on it.

Thank you all for your input .. now to do some research on this adapter.

Any suggestions on a specific brand .. is one better than another?

I am @ssuming that once you have reversed your lens, EVERYTHING is manual?! Can you manually adjust your aperture on the 18-55mm and the 55-200mm?

Michael

OK .. here's a really .. stupid .. question.

Macro lenses .. IE AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED

These lenses can only be used as a macro lens and not a standard lens. As the above mentioned lens is a macro lens and will only shoot close up as apposed to setting my 55-200mm or the 70-300mm at 105mm .. they will come out as two totally different shots .. correct?

Am I even asking this correctly?

Michael

MPSanSouci said:

OK .. here's a really .. stupid .. question.

Macro lenses .. IE AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED

These lenses can only be used as a macro lens and not a standard lens.
As the above mentioned lens is a macro lens and will only shoot close up as apposed to setting my 55-200mm or the 70-300mm at 105mm .. they will come out as two totally different shots .. correct?

Am I even asking this correctly?

Michael

Click to expand...

Not correct! Macro lenses, true macro lenses, can be used as standard or macro. Most of them make superb standard lenses. Macro lenses are designed to allow very close focus when in macro mode. Other lenses will not focus that close. Set at the same focal length on either lens you still have the same focal length. The macro lens just has built in macro capability whereas the standard lenses do not. Hence, the price of a true macro lens.

MPSanSouci said:

Thank you all for your input .. now to do some research on this adapter.

Any suggestions on a specific brand .. is one better than another?

I am @ssuming that once you have reversed your lens, EVERYTHING is manual?! Can you manually adjust your aperture on the 18-55mm and the 55-200mm?

Michael

Click to expand...

I would stick with Nikon reverse mounts although there are several other makers of them. There are two kinds of reverse mounts. There is a reverse lens mount that reverse mounts one lens onto the filter threads of the main lens. This is called "lens stacking".

It has filter threads on each side of the thin ring. I suggest metal rings instead of plastic. Also, you have to know the filter size diameter of each lens you plan to use together. Many times they are different and you would need several rings in order to accommodate a choice of lenses, i.e. 52mm to 58mm lens adapter.

The other ring simply screws into the filter threads of the lens you plan to reverse mount and it adds the F mount bayonette lugs so you can mount the lens backwards onto your camera.

In either scenario you will lose in camera metering and auto focus. You have to use something like tape to hold the aperture tang open as there is no way to manually adjust it and the camera no longer powers the lens chip to adjust it automatically.

AF-S lenses have no adjustment for aperture as the camera does this electronically so they have to have their aperture tang held open as well. The camera has no idea what aperture it is on when a lens is mounted reversed.

remember, even with one lens mounted correctly, the lens mounted on the end of that lens is what you are shooting through.

Older "D" lenses, even with manual aperture ring, still have to be held open as the ring only served as a manual "stop" so that the camera would not stop the lens aperture past what was manually set.

Michael .. or should I say Mike .. Thank You!!! Very Much for all of your information. It is extremely helpful.

Being not even a year into DSLRs, I was not 100% sure on the macro lens question. My old 35mm film lens was a 70-210mm with the macro feature. I wasn't sure if that same 'feature' carried over to DSLR lenses, but I guess a lens is a lens.

I truly appreciate all of your knowledge and comments on this subject. I'm sure I will have more questions .. and comments of my own .. as I get more into this fantastic hobby .. and also looking forward to more of your input!!!

Be well,

Michael

MPSanSouci said:

Michael .. or should I say Mike .. Thank You!!! Very Much for all of your information. It is extremely helpful.

Being not even a year into DSLRs, I was not 100% sure on the macro lens question. My old 35mm film lens was a 70-210mm with the macro feature. I wasn't sure if that same 'feature' carried over to DSLR lenses, but I guess a lens is a lens.

I truly appreciate all of your knowledge and comments on this subject. I'm sure I will have more questions .. and comments of my own .. as I get more into this fantastic hobby .. and also looking forward to more of your input!!!

Be well,

Michael

Click to expand...

You are welcome. Many zoom lenses that are called "macro" do not reproduce greater than 1:1 macro magnification. Some of them did have a "close" focus ability but that still is not really a macro lens. Macro by definition begins at 1:1 reproduction ratio but most true macro lenses reproduce far more than that.

DSLR "F" mount lenses do not differ that much from older SLR "F" mount lenses with the exception of the new AF-S DX lenses that were designed specifically for DX cameras. Almost all Nikon SLR lenses will fit, and function, with almost any Nikon DSLR with the exception that the old pre AI lenses will not meter with the DSLR. The AI-S lenses will meter but will not have auto focus of course. All Nikon AF lenses will work with any Nikon DSLR as well, but will only auto focus with those DSLR bodies that have an internal AF screw drive like the D90. The Nikon "D" series AF lenses also give distance info to the camera for TTL metering.

Mike d90 said:

Almost all Nikon SLR lenses will fit, and function, with almost any Nikon DSLR with the exception that the old pre AI lenses will not meter with the DSLR. The AI-S lenses will meter but will not have auto focus of course. All Nikon AF lenses will work with any Nikon DSLR as well, but will only auto focus with those DSLR bodies that have an internal AF screw drive like the D90. The Nikon "D" series AF lenses also give distance info to the camera for TTL metering.

Click to expand...

Michael,
Just to make extra clear, in the above case with old lenses you will need to work in Manual or Aperture priority setting, same with the reverse lens.
I love working with my Osawa lens, that company went bust in the eighties, but some colour rendering and brokeh is really lovely on my DSLR.
Look at some tutorials on the internet for reversing lenses, it will make it clear. Staking a reverse lens I find very difficult, even if have not given up on it.
For reversing I would recommend about 50mm and make certain the aperture is manual, but you can experiment with your kit lenses, however zooms are generally not recommended (break the rules is rule number 1 in photography though).