Stacked Lenses Setups
What do you want to do when you are a budget minded photographer and you want to do some extreme macro? You stack lenses of course! Stack Lenses? Why should I be stacking my lenses? What does that mean?
Basically it is just as it sounds. You take your telephoto lens or a high range prime and you stack a reversed lens in front of it. Usually the lens stacked in front is a lighter lens such as a prime lens such as the all plastic Canon 50mm 1.8 mk II in order to not put to much stress on your telephoto lens. You use a simple male to male adapter to achieve this that can be acquired on ebay for $8. Here is an example of a Nikkor 50mm stacked in front of a Nikkor 105mm macro from flickr user Squirrel_bark:
Here is an example of a shot taken with the setup:
If you use a 300mm telephoto and you use a 50mm reversed in front of it you get a 300/50 = 6:1 magnification. Hmm or say you have a 400mm with a 28mm you get a 400/28 or a 14.28:1 magnification. Ahh the caught you eye huh? $200 worth of lenses(sigma 70-300 and a 50mm) and a $8 adapter can give you a better magnification then a Canon 65mm? Ok the glass quality may not be the same but still that is fairly impressive when you think that Canon wants around $1000 for a 65mm and you are likely to have a 50mm prime and a telephoto anyways.
There is an article over at digital photography notes discussing the stacking of a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 and a Nikkor 28-200mm to get a 2.7:1 magnification. Here is a sample they provided of a jumping spider:
When you stack lens you will notice that the focus range is just millimeters so it makes shooting very difficult. I recommend opening the aperture up on the lens you are stacking on the end. You also will notice the subject has to be within an inch(es) of the stacked lens for a decent shot with perfect lighting. It really takes a lot work to get a great shot, but when you are talking about those levels of magnification you can’t help up trying out this form of Reverse Lens Macro Photography. In summary about stacking lenses:
Advantages:
- Extreme Macro can be achieved for low cost of an adapter
- Uses existing lens
- You most likely already carry these lens anyways
Disadvantages:
- You have a very narrow focus field
- Limited control of the aperture of the stacked lens
- Vignetting likely to occur