Macro photography on a budget

 

Macro Photography

without spending a fortune

Macro photography can be incredibly rewarding. Renowned photographer Robert Capa famously said “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” While Capa’s quote actually related to the images he was capturing as a war correspondent, the advice holds true even if not capturing the horrors of war. Getting up close to many subjects adds interest and often mystery as well.

However, macro photography can get expensive. The minimum focus distance of most lenses doesn't support macro photography. Macro specific lenses, while fabulous to own, can get quite expensive.

This article is all about how to capture macro photographs without spending a fortune on gear. It can be done and frankly, a lot of fun!

One of the most affordable methods of getting really close is by reversing a wide angle lens using a reversing ring. One side of the ring has threads that screw into the filter ring of a lens, the other side of the ring has a mounting flange for your particular brand of camera. This allows a lens to be mounted backward on your camera, thus the term reverse mount.

When reverse mounting a lens there are two things to consider. 

First of all, the wider the lens, the more magnification it will provide when mounted backward. A 50mm lens for example is about where the great magnification begins. As the lens gets wider, the magnification increases. 35mm and 28mm lenses give provide incredible degrees of magnification. 

Captured with 28mm Nikon lens reverse mounted.

One of my favorite aspects of macro photography is the ability to create abstract images from normal, even mundane items. What appears to be two gears here are is actually the edge of a few coins. A quarter and a dime provide the texture while a penny is sandwiched between them. 

A behind the scenes look at the setup for the coins.

Zipper shot with reverse mounted 35mm Minolta lens.

Here a simple zipper on a camera bag becomes an interesting abstract due to extreme magnification. The blue color, unusual for a zipper, adds additional interest. 

Behind the scene look at the zipper pic. 

The second consideration is the style of lens you choose to use. Modern electronic lenses have apertures which are controlled by the body. When mounted backward there will be no electronic control so aperture on these lenses is rendered inoperative. However, there are many older lenses from film cameras that have manually operated apertures. Use of these lens is preferred because it provides control over both exposure and depth of field. At this focus distance and level of magnification depth of field will be paper thin so the ability to close the aperture and gain some depth of field it a real benefit! Best of all, these lenses can often be picked up quite affordably! You might even find something that can be used in the local thrift store.

I recommend old Nikon and Minolta lenses as they are plentiful, can generally be picked reasonably and have manual operation of the aperture. 

The 28mm Nikon lens used here was in our pre-owned case for only $49.95 The 50mm Nikon was a mere $109.95. When compared to true macro lenses that are routinely over $500 and sometimes $1300 or more, the price of these humble little film camera lenses becomes quite attractive.  A 35mm Minolta and 50mm Yashica lens are also represented here. Those two lenses have ended up in my bin of goodies, most likely as donations. Can't beat that! 

An electronic circuit board shot with 50mm Nikon

The circuit board being captured. Note the orange gel added to the rear flat panel LED light. These LED panels being used sell for only $99 and are great for this type of work.

Another fun, colorful abstract. This time of an old projector lamp. Two LED panel lights, both with gels provided the light. The orange and white patterns on the right are a nice collateral effect of the multiple LEDs in the panels. Photographed with 50mm Yashica lens.

When using reverse mount lenses the focus ring on the lens is ineffective. Focus must be achieved by moving the camera until focus is achieved. This one focus distance is the only capability of the lens when reversed. This can cramp your composition somewhat but after a while, you’ll get a feeling for what your reversed lens can do and use it accordingly. 

I use a macro focus rail to make subtle adjustments for focus and composition. The shallow focus range makes hand holding the camera and making fine adjustments difficult. Nothing beats one these focus rails for this type of work. 

This macro focus rail sells for $99 and is well worth the money for the serious macro photographer.

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Another great option for macro without spending a fortune is an inexpensive set of extension tubes. Extension tubes physically move any of your existing lenses away from the camera affectively changing the minimum focus distance. One neat feature of extension tubes is that by allowing most any of your lenses to focus nearer, you can actually give long focal length lens macro capability. The extension tubes will maintain electrical connection between the body and lens allowing the aperture to operate properly. However, autofocus will struggle here so, like reverse macro, moving the camera to achieve focus is still the preferred method. The macro rail above can be of great benefit if photographing stationary subjects. 

This set of $99 extension tubes is a great option to turn any lens into a macro lens. The tubes can be used individually or combined to reduce minimum focus distance and provide the desired magnification.

Close up of strawberries taken with 85mm lens and 12 + 20mm extension tubes.

Behind the scene look of the strawberry photograph. 

A few other examples of images from my collection captured with extension tubes...

As you can see, fun macro images don't need to cost a fortune. The combined cost of the macro focus rail, flat panel lights, extension tubes and lenses used for these images is less than most dedicated macro lenses. And all these components aren't needed at the same time, or even at all. For example, the last three images are all taken using natural light using extension tubes with my existing lenses. 

There are truly endless possibilities of what you can turn into interesting photographs when you can get close enough. So just as Robert Capa said, despite talking about an entirely different type of photography, “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”