Reverse lens technique — Poor man’s macro

Reverse lens technique is very easy to set up. It is a cheap solution for macro photography. You normally go for a dedicated macro lens for macro photography, or  use the ‘macro’ mode available in your camera. However, a dedicated macro lens may not be affordable for most people, and using the macro mode may not give you a good magnification. So if you want to do macro photography on a budget, you can try various inexpensive techniques for macro photography like  close up filters, macro converters, reverse lens technique, etc. When I started photography, I didn’t have money to buy a macro lens; so I came across lens reversal or reverse lens technique for my macro photography. Through a series of articles, I am going to show you what this technique is and how you can implement it to take macro photographs.

Read: Introduction to Macro Photography

What is reverse lens technique?

It is mounting your lens backwards on the camera. A magnification of a reverse mounted lens increases — and that’s what you wanted. This is the idea of reverse lens technique. I am going to show you how to reverse a 50mm prime lens. You can follow the same technique to reverse any type of lens you have. I prefer reversing a prime lens for macro since prime lenses give sharp images and show good color reproduction.

Read: Top 8 Reasons Why you should buy a 50mm lens

 

Equipment Required

1. A DSLR/SLR camera. This technique will not work for point and shoot cameras.
2. A lens you want to reverse.
3. A reverse ring for your lens: To mount the lens backwards, you need to use a reverse ring. It has two sides: a filter thread side and mount side.

How do you select a reverse ring for your lens?

If the filter diameter of your lens is 52mm, then you should buy a reverse ring which has a filter thread diameter of 52mm (the filter diameter of the lens is written on the front element of the lens). So, buy a reverse ring which has the same diameter as that of your lens.

How to reverse a lens?

NOTE: If you don’t have a reverse ring, you can just reverse your lens,  hold it in front of your camera and see how it works.

 

Step 1: Attach the reverse ring to the front element of your lens via the filter thread.

Step 2: Detach the lens and mount it backwards. Now the back side of the lens is exposed outside.

 

Here is the comparison of magnification:

 

What’s the trade-off?

• Since you are reversing the lens, it loses its electronic communication with the camera. So auto focus will not work, and you cannot change the aperture of the lens either.
• Lens could not focus when you reverse mount it. There will be only one fixed focal plane and you have to physically move yourself to focus the subject.
• The lens cannot focus at infinity.
• The depth of field becomes extremely shallow.
• Frequent lens reversal causes accumulation of dust and particles on the sensor.

Read how to overcome the challenges while using this technique: Secrets of Macro Photography using the reverse lens

Reversing a 50mm lens will provide only a 1:1 magnfication. Learn how to take high magnification macro photography using the reverse lens technique:

• Lens reversal technique for high magnification macro photography

Below are some of the images I had taken using the reverse lens technique: