Reversing a G lens is essentially a waste of time. Just pick up a used macro. Even a third-party one will be decent and spare you a lot of trouble.

Incidentally, reversing a lens was technique used in the old days to get higher magnifications than you could get with a standard macro lens, and you didn't do it with "normal" or long lenses, you reversed wide-angles. Reversing a wide-angle turns them into essentially microscopes, especially if you have a bellows or extension tube set. The shorter the focal length of the lens, this higher the magnification reversed. There's a point of diminishing returns as to how short to go, of course. The most popular reversed wide-angle back in the day was the 24mm f2.8 Nikkor. This was a very well corrected lens in reverse, even though of course it was never intended to be used that way.

Using a zoom reversed as a macro is an exercise in futility. They're bad enough in their normal state, reversing them simply makes them crappy macros. Don't waste your time. Unless you plan to get serious with macro work, just go on ebay and pick yourself up either a used macro lens or an old 24mm AI for relative peanuts and do it right.

One more thing, don't shoot stopped down with a reversed lens. The diffraction will kill your shot (as happens normally), and you could get image center flares, depending on your light source and reversed lens. Shoot at the lens's optimum aperture, which is about two stops in from wide. If you need depth of field use focus stacking software and shoot a series of shots. This of course isn't possible with moving targets but is fantastic for static work. You can find info on focus stacking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking

By the way, can you tell I shoot a lot of macro? :-D

There are tons on ebay, amazon and I'm sure other places on the internet. There is really no need to focus on Nikon for these.

I'd like to reverse my 45mm PC-E and the only thing I can think of doing is getting both the BR-2 and BR-5 and then getting a step down ring to go from 77mm to 62mm. Are there any third party reversing ring manufacturers out there that make an alternative to this rather contrived method of reversing the lens?

Hi,

I 'used' to do it before I got a Micro and in the day before automatic lenses. It's okay, but the lenses aren't necessarily the best.

My best.

Mike

this new video looks like something i would like to try, but not for 340 dollars.

i saw this video a few days ago, looked troublesome to me, but if you can't afford another lense, maybe a good option.

I know this is a really old thread but there is a way to use G lenses for macro. You don't even need to use a 2nd lens, it's an adapter for the mount.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wLXiDfUG2I&feature=channel

The only issue I see here is the manual metering and looking for the adapters and such.

Here is the setup that really works:
Inversion ring BR-2A or Conversion ring BR-3
Bellows focusing attachment PB-6
Extension Bellows PB-6E
(Kenko extension ring set will do if bellows is above your budget)
Any lens other then G type (no aperture ring so they are unusable) with 52mm filter thread:
50mm f/1.8D, 50mm f/1.4D, 28mm or 24mm f/2.8D for example
And you could go way over 1:1 ...

Um, if the 18-135 is mounted to your camera and it only goes to f/5.6 then f/5.6 is your max aperture. Not f/1.8 on the reversed 35mm

I would want to control aperture because if I'm at full zoom on my 18-135, then I'd like to use as large an aperture as possible on my 35mm 1.8 because the 18-135 at its far end is already 5.6.

Niko - to make life harder :) - but seriously I've been today on macro workshop, and I fall in love with the Nikkor 105/vr - great piece of lens (I know it's little bit off topic but wanted to share with You). If only the price could be a little bit lower, but still great piece of glass. One thing I've learned today was the difference of using macro and regular lens with extension tubes, and surprisingly the biggest difference is the aperture You can use achieving great results. The presenter said that macro lens keeps it's quality almost through the whole range, while the standard lens has it's own peaks. Can someone confirm that?

I still don't understand why you want to control the aperture on two lenses?

Okay, so how would I be able to switch apertures? I think it's either going to be fully stopped down or fully open. I don't think I'll be attempting this anytime soon.

No, it's doable, but you have to hold the aperture slide down to keep the lens open and it's very hard to do this with the lens reversed and get good results due to shallow DOF and hand shake.

So yeah, basically it is doable, just not with G lenses huh? That's what I thought. Thanks guys!

BTW the adapters are less $ 10.00 incl ship on our dear Ebay. I have both the reverse and lens to lens adapter in 52mm

Pete

Sorry for headache

@bmxdad : That gave me a headache .. I am off to bed .. now ....

Here is a great place to bookmark, sort of a list of all you can do in macro etc

http://www.peterforsell.com/macro.html

Enjoy

Pete

@ heartyfisher: Sorry I didn't clarify. I'm using a single lens setup, with one lens mounted on reverse on the camera. I have not tried the two lens setup, do you think it would be better?

@adamz: Before I got the reverse mount adaptor, I used to hold the camera and the lens together as well. The only trouble with that is its difficult to make adjustments and you can't use a tripod, but otherwise it works well.

as for the non-G lenses the full process is very easy, You don't even have to buy any special adapters, just hold the lens and the camera together (it's tough, and You will not get the same results as with reverse mount but it can be done - checked it myself); as for focusing You simply moving camera back and forth and take pictures when You see that Your subject is in focus;
as for G type lenses - no idea, never tried it

@ alphanikonrex : Huh ?? you should set the aperture of the second lens to the largest aperture. ie F1.8 etc. then use the main lens as normal ie set the aperture you need on the primary lens to get the aperture you want. The reverse prime lens simply acts as "filter" (a huge and cumbersome one !) if you do that you wont have problems with seeing through the lenses.

@Nsxtype.. I dont think the 18-135 will be too slow ... You use F11-F16 with macro shots most times anyway ...

I completely agree. I usually resort to ƒ/8 to get the DOF I need. Otherwise, forget it. When I spin the focus ring, I don't see any change in focus (should I be?), so usually I'm going back and forth from the subject trying to get what I want in focus in focus. What I hate is that when I use flash power to get the light I need, I can stop down to ƒ/16 if I want to. The trouble with that is I can't even see through the viewfinder, and I'm unable to focus, which makes ƒ/16 useless.

Yes I have tried it .. Its not bad but the DOF is really thin .. and its rather cumbersome .. I actually tried it with 2 zooms lol my 18-200 + my 12-24 reversed. It was way too cumbersome a combination !! lol esp since the 12-24 is a G type lense and I had to try to hold the aperture open at the same time !! I use the raynox 250 these days .. when I don't want to carry my macro lens arround.

Well in the video that's what the guy did!

I found the video- http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-do-extrememe-macro-photography-without-a-dedicated-lens-video

I'm pretty sure the two lens setup maximizes the close up lens effect, but you're right, the 18-135 would be too slow anyway.

alphanikonrex, nice results, but you probably did that with an older lens design, right? I've read that depth of field is such an issue with macro lenses that you really should shoot stopped down somewhat.

I don't know about putting one lens in reverse on another, but I have put a single lens on reverse on a camera body.

I just got a Fotodiox reverse mount for my 50mm ƒ/1.2, and the results are pretty good:

But all G type lenses will stop down unless you fiddle with the switch thing that controls the aperture, maybe if you tape it in place or something.