Macro help?

CanuckAbroad

CanuckAbroad

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I have a canon 7D, 100mm 2.8 and 50mm 1.8 lens (2 of the 6 I own). I am looking to shoot better macro....get closer to the insects and take those fabulous pictures of their eyes up close. Do I need different kit or can I do it with what I have?
 
Are those lenses normal primes or macro lenses? If normal primes, reverse mount the 50mm on the 100mm to get 2:1 mag. But I would buy a 2nd hand lens with a manual aperture ring as the reversed lens, then have it fully open. You can get a 28mm Carl Zeiss F1.8 for a fiver, maybe tenner, off eBay and a reversing ring plus step-up adapter for anther tenner. You will need some light (eg flash, bank of LEDs) so you can stop down the main lens to get a big enough depth of field and a fast shutter speed (eg 1/200). You might want to invest in a focus rail to low you to focus sack. Experiment with a cheapo Chinese £20 one from eBay before investing in something more expensive.
 
Not perfect - but I have experimented with my Canon 100 F 2.8 macro and extension tubes (Jessops brand) with quite good results. I modified the 13mm extension tube (with a craft knife!) so it allows me to use my 1.4 and 2x extenders with this lens. Naturally there is a loss of both light and IQ but as I already had the gear I had to try as it cost nothing! The 100 F2.8 is surprisingly good with the Canon 2 x Mk3 extender - though it needs some PP to get the best from it.
The ultimate solution would probably be the Canon MPE 65mm but this is a very specialized lens and has a technique all of it's own apparently - it does however go to 5x magnification! I have never used the MPE lens but it does have lots of fans!
 
You could try a set of Polaroid extension tubes (13, 21, 31mm) for £60. I got mine from Amazon and have used them with a canon 60mm macro. It gets tricky as light is reduced due to being do close to the subject but for the cost I'd say well worth it.
I've only took a few pics and am really just starting with close ups but I'm very happy with these extension tubes.
 
spacester said:
Are those lenses normal primes or macro lenses? If normal primes, reverse mount the 50mm on the 100mm to get 2:1 mag. But I would buy a 2nd hand lens with a manual aperture ring as the reversed lens, then have it fully open. You can get a 28mm Carl Zeiss F1.8 for a fiver, maybe tenner, off eBay and a reversing ring plus step-up adapter for anther tenner. You will need some light (eg flash, bank of LEDs) so you can stop down the main lens to get a big enough depth of field and a fast shutter speed (eg 1/200). You might want to invest in a focus rail to low you to focus sack. Experiment with a cheapo Chinese £20 one from eBay before investing in something more expensive.
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Hi

How do you reverse mount exactly? I am guessing you need an adaptor?

Cheers
 
Yeah with one of those ^

After experimenting, I have found that reverse mounting a short prime onto a long prime (or zoom) often results in vignetting. I have found it better to simply reverse mount the short prime directly to the camera. However, focussing is much harder, as you have to have the lens stopped down to get a good depth of field, which reduces the light (a lot) into the viewfinder. This isn't a problem with reverse mounting on a lens, as you still have camera controlled aperture on the first lens. I guess I need a better (faster) reversed mounted prime :)
 
Thanks guys

Are there any tricks for doing outdoor macro.

I see a lot of pics of Dragon flies, Those hairy spiders with 3 eyes etc. But everytime I go outside I either get shallow DoF ( I know how to fix that) but the biggest problem is wind. the slighest blow knocks the subject out of focus and being on a tripod means you can't react quickly

Thanks
 
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