1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
With modern electronic lenses, the tricks of reversing lenses and using extension tubes are gettingmore difficult or almost just as expensive as a dedicated lens.
I suggest you bite the bullet and get the EF-S 60mm macro.
With modern electronic lenses, the tricks of reversing lenses and using extension tubes are gettingmore difficult or almost just as expensive as a dedicated lens.
I suggest you bite the bullet and get the EF-S 60mm macro.
@kvbarkley wrote:With modern electronic lenses, the tricks of reversing lenses and using extension tubes are gettingmore difficult or almost just as expensive as a dedicated lens.
I suggest you bite the bullet and get the EF-S 60mm macro.
Many thanks, kvbarclay. I appreciate that. Especially if it saves me wasting more time and money to achieve nothing.
Great photo too.
There are a number of ways to do "close up" photography and reversing the lens is just one method.
Close-Up Diopters
The "close up" diopters that attach to the filter threads are another option. There are two versions of these... Canon's and "everybody else's". Here's why.
The diopter is sort of like a person with poor eyesight wearing reading glasses... it allows the lens to come to focus at much closer distances than would normally be possible. The "cheap" versions of these are just a single lens element. But this creates a problem.
Since it's just a single piece of curved glass, that curvature acts like a prism. Light passing through the center focuses reasonably well. But near the edges you notice things starting to fall apart (a loss in image quality). Some people don't care about the quality near the edges so this solution may be fine.
Canon, on the other hand, have a special (actually two models) of close-up diopters that are TWO elements instead of one. The first element is the close-up diopter, and the 2nd element corrects for the chromatic aberration caused by the first element (it's basically an "achromatic doublet" arrangement). This gives the Canon version better quality results.
They make two versions... a 250D and a 500D version (and these come in different diameters). The 250D is for lenses that have a focal length in the 30-135mm range. The 500D is for lenses that have focal lengths of 70mm or above (e.g. a 70-300mm lens but you could use it on a 55-250mm lens if you use the "long" end of the focal length range). They are made in 52mm and 58mm thread diameters (both the 250D and 500D) and the 500D also is available in 72mm and 77mm diameter.
Extension Tubes
Extension tubes are another relatively low-cost alternative. These are simply hollow lens barrels with no glass. You attach the extension tube to the camera body and the lens attaches to the extension tube. Their purpose is to position the lens farther away from the sensor. By doing this, the range of focus distances is shifted closer to the camera. This means the minimum focus distance possible is now much closer than without the extension tube. But also the maximum focus distance is no longer "infinity".
Extension tubes also come in sizes... Canon makes one that positions the lens 12mm farther, and another model positions the lens 25mm farther. The Canon tubes do pass through all electronic communication (your camera still has control of the lens). The extension tube does impact the metering system, but since the Canon cameras knows how to detect a Canon extension tube, it will compensate accordingly and you'll still get correct exposures.
Kenko is also a popular maker of extension tubes.
As there is no "glass" in an extension tube, the image quality isn't an issue. The only quality issue is if the camera detects the extension tube correctly and passes through lens communications.
Macro Lens
This is the ultimate solution ... highest quality and full control. A "true" macro lens will provided 1:1 image scale. That means the size of the object as it is projected onto the sensor inside the camera is as large as the object in real life. A US penny has a diameter of 19mm. The sensor on an APS-C camera is 22.5mm x 15mm. This means you can get so close to the coin that the top & bottom are cropped out and the left & and right edges barely fit in the frame (that's pretty close).
Most "zoom" lenses that have a "macro" range really only let you get to about 1:3 or 1:4 scale (not nearly as close as a true macro lens).
You can still use extension tubes or close-up diopters in conjunction with a true macro lens ... just in case 1:1 scale isn't close enough.
Canon does make one special purpose lens called the MP-E 65mm. This lens is a manual focus (EF & EF-S lenses are "Electro-Focus") but it allows focus to be achieved anywhere from 1x to 5x scale (5:1) ... so this is an EXTREME close-up lens. But it is intended for dedicated use as a macro lens.
While we're on the topic of macro... you might also want to think about lighting. Depth of field gets VERY thin at these extremely close focusing distances.
Here's an example:
Notice here how the depth of field is barely over 1mm thick (this was shot using a 100mm macro lens). This means that you're likely to stop down to a much higher f-stop to get everything in focus. But THAT means collecting less light through a tiny aperture and THAT means you may need a longer exposure time. This can be a problem if your subject is an insect (which tends to not sit still) or even a flower outside if the wind is gently blowing.
A solution is to use flash, but the on-camera flash can cast a shadow and a shoe-mounted flash can be too high that you get poor lighting.
There are special flashes designed to solve this problem. They mount to the front of the lens and one type has two flash heads (one left and one right). Another alternative is the "ring" type flash (the flash tube wraps around the lens).
This allows you to use faster shutter speeds and still get good lighting.
I don't advocate that you just run right out and buy one... I'm really just throwing this out there to give you an awareness that you might run into this problem ... but it's a well-understood problem that has already been solved.
