Picture 1 – as close as we can get with the bundled NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens without cropping

Reverse Macro Photography is a technique I remember reading about months ago but didn’t get around to trying until today.  Most people I know who recently bought a DSLR camera also bought a prime lens to compliment their kit lens.  Like most Nikon users on a budget, I bought the inexpensive NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8D.

Macro lenses are expensive, so here’s a way we can experiment with macro photography without killing our wallets.

The first step is to stack your two lenses together.  With my 18-55 lens mounted on my camera and zoomed to 55mm, I opened the aperture on my 50mm lens all the way to f/1.8 and focused to infinity.

Next you need to hold the two lenses together so they are touching front to front.  I kept my UV protection filters on each lens so that if anything got scratched, it would be a cheap filter instead of a lens.

Turn your mounted lens on manual focus and zoom in by moving closer and further away from the object until it comes into focus.  I used aperture-priority mode for the shot below with no problems, but if your camera is having trouble metering then switch to manual mode.

Picture 2 – taken with the 18-55mm lens and the 50mm lens stacked together, no crop

Vignetting occurred but it’s nothing we can’t crop out:

Picture 3 – after cropping

If you get really into reverse macro photography, it might be a good idea to buy a macro reversing ring which screws onto the front of each lens and holds them together.  I’ll be showing examples of shots taken with this technique throughout the week.