Lens Reverse Ring for Macro Photography

Macro photography aims to make largely magnified images of very small objects at very short focal distances. There are dedicated macro lenses for this purpose, but as they are very expensive piece of equipment, we will in this series of articles introduce you to various alternatives of using a macro lens for macro photography. We will discuss hot to capture amazing images of the micro world in a budget.


Macro Lens Reverse Ring



Lens Reverse Ring
Lens Reverse Ring

Macro Reversing rings are basically adapters with a male filter thread on one side and a rear lens mount on the other. We attach the lens to the reversing ring by its filter mount and then attach the set-up to the camera.


Macro Lens Reverse Ring
Macro Lens Reverse Ring

Since the lens does not have any contact with the camera sensors you will have to manually adjust the settings. It is also a good idea to shift the lens to manual focus mode before reverse mounting it on the camera body.


Lens Reverse
Lens Reverse

Now that you have successfully reverse mounted your lens on to the camera body all you need to do is get the settings right and click away. The lens which we are using here is a canon 50mm prime (normal) lens f1.8. If you click with our current set-up you will find that the depth of field is very low. The reason being when the canon lens is taken out of the body it is usually in a full open mode or in other ways by default it is set to its lowest aperture that is f1.8 and that is the reason for the shallow depth of field.


Canon 50mm f .8 II
Canon 50mm f .8 II

In order to set the desired aperture for a given shot you will have to correctly mount the lens on the camera body and make use of the depth of field preview button.


Depth of field preview button
Depth of field preview button

Mount the lens normally on to the camera body, set the mode to manual, select the desired aperture, in this case in order to show you the difference we have selected f8. Press the depth of field preview button and while keeping it pressed un mount the lens when the camera is still on. And you will have your lens in the set aperture.


Canon Prime Lens 50mm
Canon Prime Lens 50mm

Here are a few sample shots we took with the reverse mounted canon 50mm f 1.8 using the macro reverse ring.

5rs indian coin normal magnification 50mm f1.8 canon
5rs Indian coin normal magnification 50mm f1.8 canon


Macro Lens Reverse Ring Result
Macro Lens Reverse Ring Result

Lens Reverse Ring Result
Lens Reverse Ring Result

Canon Macro Lens Reverse
Canon Macro Lens Reverse