Turn Almost Any Lens Into A Macro

One of my favorite 'old school' photo tricks is the macro reversing ring. When you turn your lens around - literally having the mount pointing at your subject - you will notice a pretty interesting effect. The lens (whatever focal length it is) becomes a macro. Of course, holding a lens over an open camera body is a pretty terrible idea. This is where the reversing ring comes in.

By mounting to the thread where you would normally mount a filter, the reversing ring makes handling the entire setup much easier to work with. "Why wouldn't I just go out and spend a few hundred dollars on a macro lens?" you ask? Because you can pick up a reversing ring for a few dollars on Ebay. All this being said, you obviously lose every automatic feature you would have with a modern lens, but for those of us who would like a macro lens (and don't want to fork out the money), this is a terrific option.

Chris Knight's picture

Residing in New York City, Chris is an internationally published photographer whose work has appeared in Vogue, People, MSNBC, ABC, Ocean Drive, GQ and others. He is an instructor of Photography and Imaging at Pratt Institute and the New York Film Academy.