Macro - couple of Q's

[Caffeine Addict]

I've been wanting to get more into macro photography and acquired some specialist kit a while ago - bellows, reversing rings, extension tubes and an old, wide angle, manual lens.

1. When using the old lens with the extension tubes and reversing ring, should the lens' internal focusing work? All I can manage is moving closer and farther to/from the subject giving me basically one level of magnification!

2. The bellows play nice with my Sigma 150mm macro, but with the reversing ring, all I get is error messages on both my 7D and 50D! They seem to be somewhat of a hybrid set of bellows with Canon EF connectors added at some point. Any help appreciated?

 

[nass]

Hello -- internal focusing will give a marginal of magnification variance but not nearly as much as adding more or less extension. I can't help you on these set of bellows as I don't know what you have, but it sounds as if they do communicate with your lens. My hunch would be you're getting error messages because on a reversing ring the lens and camera don't talk to each other. I just built a macro site which may help you a bit at http://extreme-macro.co.uk/

 

[Caffeine Addict]

Thanks for the reply Johan.

Turning the focus ring doesn't appear to do anything on the reversed lens, but I suppose the technique has to have it's down sides!

The bellows are Nikon PB-4 with Novoflex Canon adapters fitted. The reversing ring plays fine with the extension tubes but not the bellows (Even if I attach the extension tubes to the bellows!). The only thing I can think of is that the reversing ring is somehow causing a short circuit back to the camera through the Novoflex adapters - is that feasible?

I didn't pay a lot for the bellows (but that's another story!), but it would be nice if they would work with a reversed lens!

Just bookmarked your site, looks like there's a few hours of excellent and interesting reading there!