Photo taken by Martin Carlsson using a Canon 5D Mark2
Me and my friend Martin Carlsson had one of our nerdy meetings yesterday. We didn’t have a real plan, more then go out for a session but weather was really as dull as it gets and none of us felt really happy about it so Martin came up with this truly excellent idea to try out some extreme macro using the reversed lens technique.
I thought the idea was brilliant, especially in mind that I had my trusty 70mm macro that probably would become like a microscope and what if I turned my 120-300 bigma around? Would that make me see atoms for real? I was pretty sure I would so we made a setup with my Quadra, a bunch of lenses and a VISA card. Mostly because people know what it looks like.
Now, here’s a shot with the Sigma 70mm Macro NOT reversed. You get pretty close by doing nothing, just using it as it’s supposed to be used. This is as close as you get. (and don’t you dare try using those numbers!!!)
Now I reversed it but to my surprise nothing much happened. I didn’t get any closer. hmm. I ran out getting myself a bigger gun. My 70-200mm 2.8 lens. I swong it around and it gave me less then the 70mm, at least at 200m. 70mm looked closer. So I figured that my assumption of more mm was wrong. So I got myself my 17-70. At least I could try and see if wider meant closer.
Sure enough, soon I was traveling over the VISA cards surface and maan was it a beauty. I never thought a piece of plastic could look this beautiful. Close to the same feeling looking at Avatar in 3D for the first time. :D
So if 17mm meant closer what was my next step? The 12-24 (which Martin now tried in the background) was a bit tricky because of the round frontal lens. But I did have something even wider – my 10-20!
Now, the 17mm was difficult enough to control. Every breath and dare I say heart beat effected my steadiness greatly and things didn’t get easier with the 10-20 at 10mm. It was really tricky, to give you a feeling for how shallow depth of field is I tried to catch the top of one of those small letters on the card.. See how background fades away! Nice bokeh too! :D
It was EASY to miss, either you got the top, bottom or just a big blur. All depending on who touched the table or walked the floor or if a big bird flew outside my window.
Now, what’s next? All above shots has been taken wide open. I had no idea how to change aperture on a lens that wasn’t mounted but Martin had an idea. By changing the Aperture while mounted he then pressed the “aperture test button” and while holding the button he gently released the lens and oala – aperture was still at wanted f-stop! Now things got even more interesting!
How about Linns face at f8 – f32?
Or why not some fine salt? (not sea salt or anything huge like that)
Or the landscape of a swedish 20kr bill? And yes, the black part of the image was me not holding the reversed lens perfectly aligned. It wasn’t that easy!
And finally Martin started staring into a good old light bulb – as if the quadras flashes and strong LED wasn’t enough disturbing. I’m pretty sure Martin took some better shots with his 5D but here’s my only sharp one. Or at least, a bit sharp. Lamp never stood really still and it was terribly hard to take a decent shot.
But I got pretty close! :)
Alright, if you have your own shots to share, then please do! (it’s easy to do when you post a comment).
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