Macro Photography Concept

Mount 24mm Reversed on 180mm Macro

I had been playing with Macro photography in the field for a while when one fall, I don't remember which one, George Lepp wrote in his column in Outdoor Photography about "extreme" macro photography.  He offered a 16X image of a butterfly wing as an example.

I was interested to hear about his setup for it.  He said that he had reversed a 24mm lens on a macro lens, using the reversed lens as a closeup filter.  This idea stuck in my mind and I ruminated on it.  I bought some coupler rings, male threads on both sides, and some step-up step-down rings so that I could start mounting lenses in reverse.  The above image is of the coupling between my 180mm macro and a 24mm lens reversed.  I am glad I rented the 24mm lens because I was not particularly pleased with the output.  The feeling at mindat seems to be that that would not work.

 

Sigma 24mm mounted in reverse on the Sigma 180mm and used as a closeup filter

Later, I became interested in photographing mineral samples.  I joined a website, mindat.org.  They are located in Germany and have extensive "how to" articles, and many high quality images of minerals. At first I had problems reconciling my macro photography "setup" with their descriptions and images of their "setup."  I down loaded a flow chart showing decision making data on what to use depending on the sample size, etc.  I have finally grasped the overall continuum.  We both use stack captures as described in the offering on the CamRanger.  The limits of my setup are around 8 to 10x.  Theirs go up from there to about 20X.  They use microscope objective lenses mounted on their cameras and make their stacks using rails with stepping motors.  I use CamRanger to control the camera and lens.  The images for the stack are made using the auto focus motor in the Camera/lens combination.

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