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Introduction

What is Macro Reverse Lens Photography?

A poor mans macro…
Basically you take a standard zoom lens or a prime lens and with the aid of an adapter ring connect the front of the lens to the SLR body of your camera or infront of another lens.  It then reverses the optics giving you a macro lens capable of getting great detail.

Advantages of Macro Reverse Lens Photography?

  • Inexpensive, for the cost of an adapter you can easily get 1:1 macro results with a standard kit lens
  • Introduction to Macro Photography, it is an easy way to see if Macro photography is right for you
  • Easy to carry in the field, since you are using a standard lens you are carrying with you normally you don’t need a separate expensive bulky macro lens just a simple adapter

Disadvantages of Macro Reverse Lens Photography:

  • No Autofocus, since you lens’ motor contacts are no longer in contact with the camera body
  • Limited Aperture Control, since your lens’ aperture contacts are no longer interfacing with the body although you can usually open it all the way up or close it all the way down
  • Risk of Dust, since the back of your lens is exposed to the air the risk of getting dust in your lens is very high

From Wikipedia’s Macro Photography Page

  • Reversing the lens using a “reversing ring”. This special adapter attaches to the filter thread on the front of a lens and makes it possible to attach the lens in reverse. Excellent quality results up to 4x lifesize magnification using fairly cheap, “standard” (not specially designed for macro) lenses can be produced. For cameras with all-electronic communications between the lens and the camera body, such as Canon EOS, reversing rings are available which allow all camera functions, including open aperture metering, to be used. When used with extension tubes or bellows a relatively cheap but highly versatile macro system can be assembled.
  • Reversing a lens of lesser focal length in front of a normally mounted lens using an inexpensive macro coupler, which screws into the filter threads on the front of the two lenses to join them mechanically. This method allows most cameras to maintain the full function of electronic communication with the normally mounted lens for features such as open-aperture metering. Magnification ratio is calculated by dividing the focal length of the normally mounted lens by the focal length of the reversed lens (e.g., when an 18 mm lens is reverse mounted on a 300 mm lens the magnification ratio is 16:1). The use of automatic focus is not advisable as the extra weight of the reverse-mounted lens could damage the autofocus mechanism. Working distance is significantly less than the original lens.

Photo Comparison

Here are two sample images. The one on the left is a reverse macro photo from a Canon T1i with a reversed 18-50mm DC Sigma lens. The photo on the right is from the same camera with a Sigma DC 50mm macro lens.

Reverse Macro Sample - Canon T1i, Sigma 18-50mm DC ReversedMacro Sample - Canon T1i, Sigma 50mm DC Macro Lens

Notice how the $100 Sigma 18-50mm reversed lens gave very comparable results to a $300 Sigma 50mm Macro lens. Please click on the image to see the whole 15mp image for the fine differences.

Check out our blog articles tagged with “comparison” for more samples.

Flickr Groups

All of these Flickr Groups are Dedicated to Reverse Macro Photography:

Important Blog Articles

All of these blog articles are great reference for those wanting to learn more about reverse lens macro photography.

Do It Yourself Blog Articles

Interesting approaches of reverse lens macro photography by do it your selfers.