Curious about stacked lens macro - which lenses are best?

[iolair]

I've four lenses with 52mm filter thread, and have just ordered a 52mm male-52mm male reverser, to try stacked lens macro.

Which combination of primary lens and stacked lens is likely to be "best"?

I've got:
Canon 28mm f/2.8
Canon 50mm f/1.8
Canon 60mm f/2.8 macro
Kodak 80-210mm f/3.5-f/5.6

The 50mm and 60mm are very sharp, the 28mm sharp and the Kodak only OK.

 

[Overread17 5]

The rough maths for reversing lenses is:

Focal length of the lens connected to the camera body - divided by - the focal length of the reversed lens in front of it = magnification :1

Eg a 100mm lens on the camera with a 50mm lens reversed in front of it would be 100/50 = 2:1

Or in other words twice life size.

I've no idea if the base/native magnification of either lens has any effect on the magnification results (some rough maths methods are rough because they assume a very low base magnification and thus the shorthand maths ignores the inclusion of the native lens magnifications - and I don't know the more advanced maths). Also don't forget that the focusing distances will vary as well.

In the end I'd sit down and spend some time playing around and just seeing what different combos are capable of achieving - a great thing to do on a cold winters day - indoors