New camera

[Connie Star]

You can also try reversing the lenses- have to manually stop them down and a lot of experimentation is required. I'm fortunate to have a 60mm and 100mm macros. I use the longer one mainly for photographing small creatures like insects and spiders that won't let you get to close- I haven't shelled out the money for a telextender yet- that may be my next purchase. It helps the lighting I think to get a little further away from the subject.

[ChasWG]

Connie, I've don the reversed lens trick with both my 50mm 1.8 and my 28mm 2.8 and have had some nice luck with that. It's just that the camera is open quite a bit to dust intrusion. I had an issue with some dust a while ago and I think it was caused from me reverse mounting my lenses too much.

For those that don't know about this trick, if you have a Canon SLR camera body with a DoF preview button and a lens with a 52mm from element/filter mount (50mm f1.8 or 28 f2.8 and a couple others) then this will work. You need to play with it a bit, but you basically set your apature to larger number (I like to start with f8), hold the DoF preview button down and then remove the lens. The iris blades in the lens will stay stopped down. Then you simple hole the front of the lens, reversed around into the opening of the camera body. The 52mm filter mount will fit nicely into a grooved spot of the body. It won't stay there without you holding it. You then focus by moving the whole camera/lens deal into the subject. move back and forth until you get a nicely focused image. Take the picture. The more you stop the lens down, the harder it will be to determine the point of focus though.

[Bloomin_Aussie]

Originally Posted by Connie Star

You can also try reversing the lenses- have to manually stop them down and a lot of experimentation is required. I'm fortunate to have a 60mm and 100mm macros. I use the longer one mainly for photographing small creatures like insects and spiders that won't let you get to close- I haven't shelled out the money for a telextender yet- that may be my next purchase. It helps the lighting I think to get a little further away from the subject.

A teleconverter will allow you to back off a bit from the subject if you are so close that you block light with the lens... I always use a flash with my 100mm though so not too much of an issue. On the downside you actually lose one stop of exposure (2 stops with a 2x teleconverter) Also, a teleconverter will affect depth of field as you are effectively increasing the focal length.

If you don't want to spend a fortune on one I would recommend the Kenko teleplus 1.4x. In fact the Canon one can only be fitted to long tele lenses anyway.

[Connie Star]

I believe you can buy tubes and or bellows for reversing lenses from places like Porters or Adorama. With the older lenses I have, you can also stop the lens down manually. I'm not sure if this will work with the electronic shutters on digital SLRs. Another devise is an extension tube, which is simply a hollow tube of varying lengths that fits between the camera body and the lens. Again, I have only used those with film SLRs. I might experiment. Then again, I have a couple of macro lenses that I love.

[ChasWG]

Yeah, I have the extension tubes. Kenko makes a set that will work with your DSLR body and lenses. They are nice to have. The TC I own is an older 1.4x Tamron that doesn't allow auto focus on my 40D body and 70-200 f4 L.

[Connie Star]

Yeah, I have the extension tubes. Kenko makes a set that will work with your DSLR body and lenses. They are nice to have. The TC I own is an older 1.4x Tamron that doesn't allow auto focus on my 40D body and 70-200 f4 L.
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Hi Chas- where would I find the kenko tubes?

[ChasWG]

Originally Posted by Connie Star

Hi Chas- where would I find the kenko tubes?

Connie, I got them off of eBay. I think they were about $120 or so. But make sure you get the "Automatic" version made for your camera. The regular tubes won't pass the TTL info from the lens to the camera body.