Tutorial: Home made macro lens for poor

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FX-1988's avatar
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Ive been very interested in macro photography for a long time, but for now I don't have the money to buy an expensive macro lens
till this day I used P&S cameras to take macro but they didn't gave me what I was looking for in macro photography
what the use of DSLR camera when P&S camera can take better macro then the reflex?
I wanted my DSLR to take macro but I didn't have the money.

not so long ago I got a old Nikon 18-55 kit lens
I didn't have much to do with this lens but I
check it and noticed that it can focus on close distance
I search the internet for photos that was taken with this lens and noticed that some photographers put a revers 50mm lens on top of this lens and it giving them the ability to take macro

I was very
curious to check it, also I had 50mm lens so I took this lens and attached it to the 18-55 with scotch tape

this is how my new lens looks

41533300 by FX-1988
notice that the 50mm is reversed
the
diameter of the tow lenses is 52mm so it not so hard to attache them.

the
advantage of this technique is the fact that it very cheap
a used 18-55 cost 75$
and 50mm 1.8D cost 100$
for my lens I used an old 50mm 1.8E, it pretty
similar to the 50mm D

also i used
scotch tape to connect the tow lenses
If you have some more money and you can
wait , you can order spacial connector

so
immediately I found an interesting object to take macro photos
81246318 by FX-1988

and here how the photo look
68073653 by FX-1988
D80
55mm
F5.6

21391008 by FX-1988
D80
55mm
F38
notice how the
aperture size influence the corner illumination
also notice that the focusing distance is very close (2-5cm)

all the photos that Ive post here are the originals, no crop and no photoshop
25236213 by FX-1988

I hope that it was useful
here is a link for some more info


© 2014 - 2024 FX-1988
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andresllamallama's avatar
Wow I had no idea of this, very interesting, I have my kit-lens and I'm looking forward to acquire a 50mm f1.4 lens so when I do I'll try that.   Is there any risk for the lens to put it on reverse position? Maybe dust? Thank you.