Very often I’ve played with various lenses, tubes, close-up filters and reverse-mount rings. But I actually never did a big test on my various lenses to see how they perform in the macro realm with all the tricks I could think of. So now I finally decided to do all the macro tests using all of the lenses, rings and adapters I could find in my camera bag. Some worked really bad, some worked really well. Some were a real surprise.
Lenses I used in this test
I used all of the glass I have laying around. These are the lenses I tried to “macrofy”:
- 100mm: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM (as a reference)
- 35mm: Samyang 35mm f/1.4 AS UMC
- 50mm: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II
- 24-70mm: Tamron 24-70/2.8 SP Di VC USD Canon
- 100-400mm: Canon EF 100-400/4.5-5.6 L IS USM
- 15-85mm: Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
On each lens I did tests that seemed to make sense, plus I measured the magnification each of the setup would give me.
Camera and other hardware
For all of the test shots I used a simple tape measure as the subject. I used my 6D, and took all of the test shots at f/11 unless noted differently. For lighting I used my Nissin Di866 mkII flash unit mounted at an 45 degree angle:
Macro setup using the Canon EOS 6D camera with an off-camera mounted Nissin Di866mkII flash unit and a reverse-mounted Canon EF15-85.
I also used a set of Soligor tubes of 12, 20 and 36mm denoted as tube12, tube20 and tube36. I also used some close-up lenses I denote with close1, close2, close4 and close10 for 1,2,4 and 10 diopter close-up lenses. Finally I have a Soligor 1.4x PRO teleconverter which I will denote as EXT14.
The big list of tests performed
So here are the tests I performed, combined with the images taken (click the images for a larger version):
| CONFIGURATION | IMAGE | MAGNIFY |
|---|---|---|
| 100mm |  100mm |
1,00 |
| 100mm+tube12 |  |
1,15 |
| 100mm+tube20 |  |
1,25 |
| 100mm+EXT14 |  |
1,39 |
| 100mm+EXT14+tube12 |  |
1,61 |
| 100mm+EXT14+tube20 |  |
1,76 |
| 100mm+close1 |  |
1,13 |
| 100mm+close2 |  |
1,21 |
| 100mm+EXT14+close1 |  |
1,54 |
| 100mm+EXT14+tube12+close1 |  |
1,79 |
| 100mm+EXT14+tube12+close2 |  |
1,97 |
| 100mm+EXT14+tube20+close2 |  |
2,14 |
| 100mm+EXT14+tube20+close1+close2 |  |
2,29 |
| 100mm+EXT14+tube20+close4 |  |
2,55 |
| 100mm+EXT14+tube20+close1+close2+close4 |  |
3,00 |
| R35mm |  |
2,05 |
| R35mm+tube36 |  |
2,08 |
| R50mm closed to f/11 |  |
0,91 |
| R50mm close to f/11 with 36mm tube |  |
0,89 |
| 50mm+tube36 |  |
0,65 |
| R2470 closed to f/11 @70mm |  |
1,83 |
| R2470 closed to f/11 @24mm |  |
3,35 |
| 400mm+tube36 @100mm |  |
0,43 |
| 400mm+tube36 @400mm |  |
0,34 |
| 400mm+close10 @100mm |  |
0,82 |
| 400mm+close10 @400mm |  |
2,58 |
| 400mm+close2 @400mm |  |
0,76 |
| 400mm+tube36+tube20+tube12 @400mm |  |
0,47 |
| 35mm+close10 |  |
0,43 |
| R1585 @85mm |  |
2,43 |
| R1585 @15mm |  |
5,23 |
Early conclusions
Looking at all of the images, I think there are some early conclusions we can draw:
- Tubes work better on short lenses, close-up lenses work better on long lenses (< or >100mm);
- When reversing lenses the shorter the lens, the bigger the magnification (40mm delivers 1x magnification);
- Dedicated macro lenses beat “creatvie setups” most of the time;
- The Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM really surprised when mounted reversed; it almost has the same range as the Canon MP-E 65!
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Hello Erik, I ran across your comments regarding macrophotography, & your article comparing lenses & tubes, & reversing rings. I have been trying to take some snowflake photography & wondered what method of the ones you mentioned have your tried. As I do not have tubes, I have tried using a reversing ring on a 18-55mm canon lens, a tripod & a focusing rail. The depth of field is sooo small, I cannot get an entire snowflake in focus. I did put the lens on F22 & turned it around w/o turning the camera off, but I did not remember to push the depth of field button in at the same time, which may be what affected my results. This is what I got, I would appreciate your comments, suggestions if you have the time. Its suppose to snow this weekend, so I would like to try it one more time, this Winter. I also have a 50mm 1.4 Canon lens & a 24-105L lens. Results I posted on my Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/sarabcoffey
Hi Sara,
I never got round to blogging about this, but when you’re reversing lenses you need to close the aperture on your lens manually. It’s terrible to work with as your aperture stays closed and the viewfinder will be very dark.
Anyway, the trick: Put the lens on your camera as you normally would. Select “M” mode and set the aperture to f/8 or f/10 (whatever you’ll need). Now press the “DOF preview” button on the camera. This button usually sits under the lens at the base somewhere. This will close the aperture of the lens to the value you specified. Now unmount the lens WHILE YOU KEEP THE DOF BUTTON PRESSED. The lens will now “power off” while the aperture remains closed. Now place the lens reversed on your camera.
It is a hassle. Do I use reversed lenses? Hardly ever. I’m playing with a gadget that will keep a revered lens powered through a cable, but I need to put that through its paces.
Some other issues when reversing lenses is that the rear of the lens is open, and often attracts dirt. Mounting a ring flash is also “interesting”
All in all reversing lenses sounds nice, but I haven’t seen any real use cases with them. In the end a dedicated macro lens cannot be beat. I have the Canon 100mm f/2.8L which I often combine with a 20mm tube, a 1.4x Soligor PRO extender and a Nissin Ringflash. This produces the best results.
Only when I need a mgnification of like 5x I’ll grab my Canon 15-85 and I’ll reverse it. I have quite some rings and adapters to make it work, but it is far from optimal. Kind of like shooting with a Canon MP-E 65 but without automatic aperture (could using the MP-E 65 get any worse? 😉 ).
Thanks Erik for responding, One more thing; So if I want to get more of the snowflake in focus w/ the equipment I have what F stop would be best to get more depth of field w/ it reversed?
Good question 🙂
Actually you’d be tempted to go f/20 or f/32 if your lens can take that, but in real life that will always produce blurry mages. As you stop down, the light will squeeze through an ever tinier hole. To keep it simple and clear, just imagine that as the light does this it will blur more and more on the sensor.
How far you can go will depend on the camera you have. As the aperture closes further, light will blur more. As soon as the blur extends further than a pixel on the sensor, blur starts to creep in. The smaller the pixels on your sensor, the lower the “best” f-stop.
To give you an idea: I shoot at f/9 or f/10 on my 7D. I shoot f/11 or f/13 on my 6D. Yes, the 6D had a bigger sensor and so less dense pixels.So you can squeeze the aperture further. Not that that really helps; because the sensor is bigger, I need to get closer to the subject for the same composition…. And the closer distance will decrease the DoF again! This is the constant trade off you do.
You can test it on your own camera too: As you shoot at different apertures, there is always a part of the image that is really sharp. When you close the aperture too much, there won’t be any part of the image that is sharp anymore. Also don’t forget: Closing the aperture is good for DoF, bad for lighting. I very often use a ringflash.