Ok, perhaps not exactly reverse engineering anything, but that is what came to me and I found it funny. Here is the truth. Messing around on Twitter I found @HamToastDotCom and went to look at his website and Flickr page. I found his macro photos very interesting. After reading his post, "Reverse the lens, how and why" I decided to give it a try.
Read the story after the jump.
Not having anything very exciting to photograph come to mind I started walking around the house. Enter the kitchen and I see an aloe plant sitting in the window. Perfect! The light coming in from the window will eliminate the need for any flash and an aloe plant looks kinda cool. So I flip my lens around, yes, that is the whole key to this. Take the lens off the camera, hold it backwards right up against the camera and make some interesting macro shots. It is all outlined in the post I linked to above.
Since the post tells how the wider the lens, the greater the magnification I grabbed my Tokina 19-35mm lens and went to work.
The first think I learned was you gotta get close. Real close. As in a matter of inches.
Fortunately I figured out before I started that I need to set the aperture manually. I went for as wide open as the Tokina lens will go. A not very impressive 3.5. Then it is just a matter of finding the focus. This is done by changing the distance between the camera and the subject. Simple enough.
As I am moving toward and away from the aloe plant trying to find the very small focus point I learn my second lesson. With such a small field of focus and such a high magnification, any bit of movement changes the photo drastically. A steady hand is important.
Having a steady hand is much more difficult when it is mid-morning and one has already had a pot of coffee. Next time I'll have to switch to decaf.
None the less I got a couple photographs. The first one is at 35mm, the second, closer to 19mm. Not great focus, but it was my first attempt.
But aloe was beginning to bore me. What else can I photograph with my new found macro lens?
Avocado! Quite possibly my favorite food. I love it simply mashed with a little lemon, a touch of salt on a good cracker. What will I think of it "reverse engineered" in a photograph?
Umm, not too bad in the first photo at 35mm. It looks like an avocado up close.
But at 19mm, it is looking a little less appetizing.
Later in the day at Cold Stone I got a frozen yogurt with raspberries mixed in. This photo has my current favorite lens, my Pentax 50mm 1.4. So, not as close as 19mm, but it lets in a ton of light.
I think it might be time to stop using food as my subject for macro "reversed lens" photography.
I hope to make more photographs with a reversed lens. If you want to follow along, check out my Reversed Lens set on my Flickr page.
Thanks for reading my ramblings!