Creative possibilities with vintage primes? (Stacking, ext tubes, reverse mnt, etc.)

I have the following older primes for my D3300.

• 28 f/3.5 Nikkor-H
• 50 f/1.8 Nikon Series E
• 105 f/2.5 Nikkor-P (Sonnar-type)
• 200 f/4 Nikkor-Q

While researching these and other lenses, I came across references to using teleconverters, reverse mounting, stacking lenses, etc). Made me wonder what other cool things I could be doing with these lenses beyond their intended use. If you have used these or similar lenses in alternate configurations (stacked, with extension tubes, reversal rings, with teleconverters, etc.), I'd love to learn what gear you used and how the photos turned out. Also, I'd appreciate if you could weigh in on the following things I was looking to try out (and hopefully steer me from anything that may be a waste of time).

• Add a teleconverter to the 200 f/4 for extra reach. (If so, which TC model?)
• Use an extension tube with the 200 f/4 and the 105 f/2.5 for better close-ups. (Which model of extension tube?)
• Use the 28 f/3.5 mounted in reverse for higher magnification. (Which model of reversing ring?)
• Stack two or three of these lenses for extreme close-ups or telephoto? (What configurations? What hardware required?)

Thanks for your inputs!

Reversing a 28 will get you in real close. I use an old pre-ai 28 that's dedicated to my PB-6 bellows and leave it installed in reverse. It had a DIY ai job done that was botched, so the lens simply cannot be used normally. I picked it up for a song.

480sparky said:

Reversing a 28 will get you in real close. I use an old pre-ai 28 that's dedicated to my PB-6 bellows and leave it installed in reverse. It had a DIY ai job done that was botched, so the lens simply cannot be used normally. I picked it up for a song.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing! Did the 28 reverse mount directly on the PB-6 or did you need another attachment to do that? Also, how do you control the aperture in such a configuration? Finally, a sample pic or two with that arrangement would be great to see


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gustafson said:

Thanks for sharing! Did the 28 reverse mount directly on the PB-6 or did you need another attachment to do that? Also, how do you control the aperture in such a configuration? Finally, a sample pic or two with that arrangement would be great to see


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Click to expand...

It mounts with a BR-2A. I control the aperture with a BR-6.



1. Background (I have several colors, but usually use black or white)
2. 24" Silver-lined umbrellas (when shooting extreme macros, I take these off and just use the reflectors)
3. 300ws monolights
4. Light stands
5. Astronomer's star chair (works perfect for shooting macros..... the seat height is adjustable!)
6. Laptop to control DSLR
7. Small, adjustable-height table







A. Nikon BR6 (to open & close lens aperture)
B. Old Nikkor 28mm 2.8 Ai lens
C. Nikon BR2 reversing ring
D. "Third Hand" for holding small objects
E. D600
F. Nikon PB6 bellows
G. Cable release to BR6 to open & close lens aperture
H. 4-way focus rail
I. USB cord from laptop
J. Manfrotto 410 geared head
K. (not shown) Manfrotto 055XB tripod
L. Yongnuo RF remote trigger for monolights




Well, you asked!

Holy smokes, that is quite a setup! You just obliterated my question about reverse mounting the 28!! Can you share your favorite image or two taken with this rig?


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gustafson said:

Holy smokes, that is quite a setup! You just obliterated my question about reverse mounting the 28!! Can you share your favorite image or two taken with this rig?


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Click to expand...

No one favorite, but I'll bet few people can figure out what these are:

1


2


3


4


5


6


7


8


9


10

Whoa, those are some impressive close ups. #6 looks like screw threads close up, the others are anybody's guess!

Made some amazing progress this evening with a little help from an article on coupling two lenses to get extreme closeups, viz. Coupled lenses in macro photography. So the big tip in this article is to mount a telephoto lens on the body, and a wide-angle lens in reverse on the telephoto using a coupling adapter. Well, I couldn't wait to get a coupling adapter to test the theory, so I used packing tape (pl. don't hate) to hold these old primes against each other. I tried the following combinations:

1. 28 f/3.5 reverse mounted on 200 f/4 (which in turn was mounted normally on D3300)
2. 50 f/1.8 E reverse mounted on 200 f/4
3. 28 f/3.5 reverse mounted on 105 f/2.5

To my surprise, I was actually able to get decent photos using these combos. The one thing I saw right off was darkening of the viewfinder image, suggesting a fair amount of light was being lost, possibly in part due to my makeshift coupling adapter. The other thing was I needed to be rather close to the subject in order to focus on it. This often cast a shadow on the subject, so I had to adjust the angle and use significant exposure compensation (+5EV) to get usable images. As regards focusing, rather than turn the focus wheel(s), I found it easier to move toward or away from the subject to bring it into focus. I read somewhere that it helps to have both coupled lenses focused at infinity, and that seemed to work. I also implemented the tip in the article to keep the telephoto wide open, and the reversed wide-angle stopped down to the min. In practice, stopping the wide-angle down to minimum aperture gave me dark images, so opened them back up some.

Image 1 is of the top of my Macbook, taken with lens Combo 2. Didn't realize anodized aluminum was so rough.
Image 2 is of my 200 f/4 taken with lens Combo 3.
Image 3 is of a quarter taken withe lens Combo 3.
Image 4 is of a Nikon lens cap taken with lens Combo 2.

These images are uncropped, and only Image 1 has any PP (very minor). The images were downsampled to allow posting here, but were otherwise untouched.

Pretty thrilled to discover this hack and get more potential use out of these vintage primes!