My first water drop..Need macro lens or tubes?

[tmjjk]

or


I do not have tubes or a macro lens... took these with my 55-200... what could I have done better? Thank you

 

[tmjjk]

bump for c&c

 

[Ernicus]

I could be wrong, but I don't think it's anywhere near close enough. Could you have gotten any closer? or zoomed anymore?

 

[tmjjk]

I ordered some tubes... so hopefully in a week or so I can set this up again and get closer... also I think the water drop should have been sharper... but I don't know what else I could do. And when I tried getting closer, I couldn't get the focus.

 

[unpopular]

just for teh record, a dedicated lens will always perform better than extension, but they are good if you don't plan on doing enough macro to justify the expense.

Because many macro photographers use manual focus, consider an older manual lens and an appropriate adapter if needed.

 

[tmjjk]

I will eventually get a macro lens... but I think it is third in line on my wish list I am completely stumped on this lens reversal thing... think I will try to learn about that tomorrow

 

[Skaperen]

I will eventually get a macro lens... but I think it is third in line on my wish list I am completely stumped on this lens reversal thing... think I will try to learn about that tomorrow

Reversing a lens just makes use of its design formulation in a different way. Typical lenses are designed for proper corrections of things like chromatic aberration at specific distances. For a lens mounted to a camera, the lens formula corrects things like chromatic aberration for the film/sensor being at a very close distance while at the front its optimal at a greater distance. For macro this reversal can work well because the subject is up close and the lens is extended out a distance from the camera. An enlarger lens (for making prints at a distance from negatives or slides up close) is effectively already reversed. You can sometimes see them used as macro lenses. A dedicated macro lens like the Canon 65mm MP-E will be formulated according to its target range, which is 1x to 5x (this lens, for example, cannot focus at distant objects ... it is macro-ONLY). Other lenses may have a more symmetric formulation.

You can also make many lenses better optimized for the 1:1 size (object shows on film/sensor at same size) by putting 2 of them front-to-front. The rear of one is mounted to the camera as usual, and the rear of the other is facing the subject, which will be at the same distance as the film/sensor is. Ideally this is done with 2 identical large aperture lenses. It can be done to some extent with unlike lenses. But not all lenses behave well with this. There are special rings with the same filter threading on both sides just to do things like this.

A 2x teleconverter can also double your image size at some penalty of quality and a loss of light.

 

[tmjjk]

so could I put two 50mm together, 1.4 and 1.8...

 

[tmjjk]

More importantly will I damage anything playing around with this technique?? Thanks

 

[unpopular]

There is a small risk that the adapters may damage the lens or body. Do not buy the cheapest adapter you can find, and I would recommend buying them from domestic dealers. It's not that these adapters won't come from a Chinese manufacturer, but a well-respected dealer would ahve already researched which adapters are complete junk.

If you have the money, you can always trust Novoflex.