The last guest article for the weekend “Odd ways of macro photography” is written by Junaed Rahman (website | flickr):
The standard tool of macro photography is a Macro lens. That what the book says. But I learned to achieve high magnification when i didn’t had any standard tool. However they are unlikely to generate good result but its always fun to do something new.
While trying various methods to achieve magnification once I suddenly discovered that if I remove the front element of zoom lens like 35-80 mm, it turns into a macro zoom lens. The magnification is higher just like a reversed lens but I have total electronic control on exposure. A great blessing. Caution – do it at your own risk.
I had an old Vivitar autofocus 2X teleconverter. As the digital era started it turned out that these converters can generate worst kind of image, so it became out of service. But why not through out the inner glass element of this converter and turn it into an extension tube. So i removed all the glass component and covered the shiny aspects with black felt found in the opening of good old film canister. Voila now I have a fully functional AF Vivitar extension tube. Which works perfectly with my Nikon D200 body. And it is solid too.
It is a known technique that if you attach your wide angle lens (e.g. 35 mm lens) in a reverse position with your camera you can achieve very high magnification. Your 24mm or 35 mm lens can suddenly take macro photo. There is no loss of light like bellows or extension tube.
If you use nikon SLR camera you can procure reverse ring BR-2A to mount the lens with the camera body and BR-6 auto diaphragm ring on the other side of the lens to regain control on aperture.
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