jim quist Loc: Missouri

My wife bought a reversing ring for one of her lenses and images are amazing. You might give it a try before investing in something expensive.

You buy the one that is your camera mount that affixes to your camera. And the filter size of the lens you are going to use it with to attach the lens with. Under $10.00.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/search?N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Ntt=Reversing%20ring

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Once I figured reverse lens macro out I almost stopped using macro lenses but it really depends on what type of macro you are interested in, reversed lenses only offer a very short working distance and you can't focus them at all so all you can shoot is close up macro. I do agree however that the images are incredible and it is a minor expense as compared to the purchase of a new macro lens. My favorite lenses for reversed were old 28mm film era lenses. Very inexpensive macro set up that produce excellent results, flash is required in my opinion.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

The old Vivitar Series 1 lenses could be quite good.

Are you sure yours were made by Komine?

Of the various ones I'd used over the years, I liked the Kino Precision made Vivitars the best. Many of them also were sold under the Kiron name.

Kino Precision was a company that was formed by some ex-Nikon optical engineers and they made some very good products for a short time.

The only problem I ever had with any of the Kiron or Vivitar/Kiron lenses was stuck lens apertures. If I recall correctly, though, that was only non-macro lenses such as their 24mm or 28mm primes.

At that time Vivitar out-sourced all their lens manufacturing and the prefix of the lens serial number indicated who actually made the lens. In most cases the first two digits of the serial number were used to designate the lens maker, but as you can see from the following, which I think is fairly complete, there were a couple exceptions.

6 Olympus

9 Cosina

13 Schneider Optik

22 Kino (aka Kiron)

25 Ozone Optical

28 Komine

32 Makinon

33 Asanuma

37 Tokina

42 Bauer

44 Perkin Elmer (US)

47 Chinon

51 Tokyo Trading

56 Kyoe Schoji

75 Hoya Optical

81 Polar


I don't believe they still use that numbering scheme.... They stopped doing so sometime in the 1980s or 1990s.

AFAIK, Vivitar still outsources all or nearly all their manufacturing.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Are you reversing the lens or reverse-stacking a lens?

Both are techniques to shoot macro.

Reversing the lens imply requires a bayonet mount of the correct type that threads into the front of the lens. I've used short telephotos like 85m, 100mm and 135mm non-macro lenses in this manner.

There are many different bayonet mounts available: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?q=lens%20reversing%20&filters=fct_category%3Areversing_rings_3065

Reverse-stacking is done with two lenses... one mounted normally and the other reversed and threaded onto the front of the 1st lens, to act as sort of a high quality diopter lens. For that I also used a 28mm reversed, onto a 135mm lens mounted normally. Ideally they would have the same size filter thread, or the 28mm's thread diameter would be larger. If planning to do this, might be best to first determine what base lens you'll be using, then get an adapter, then look for a 28mm to reverse that has a similar or larger diameter AND fits the reversing adapter threads. Not all sizes or combinations of sizes are available.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=coupler%20macro&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma

Not all lenses are easily reversed or reverse-stacked. For example, Canon FD and FL lenses stop down to a middle aperture when off the camera (f/5.6?). In order to open the aperture fully when the lens is reversed for a brighter viewfinder while focusing and composing, a special device is needed. It looks like a rear lens cap, except the bottom of it is open. This device was actually made for repair techs who needed to open the aperture while working on those lenses. It's rather rare. I've got one (versus dozens of standard rear lens caps). It might be possible to make one out of a standard rear lens cap, but it's not as simple as just cutting the bottom out of it. The device needs to press a pin inside the mount to cause the aperture to open. This can only be used to do reverse-stacking, where the base lens' aperture is used to control exposure and depth of field, while the reversed lens attached to the front has it's aperture held wide open. I don't recall if it's possible to manually stop those lenses down to do single lens reversal, the way most other mounts can be.

markwilliam1

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Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Reversed lens, lens stacking is nice because it allows the use of the auto shutter, but I mostly did reversed lenses on tubes... I liked lenses made for Olympus because they have a stop down button on the side of the lens. I have a Vivitar 28mm close up lens made for Olympus that I use, it allows you to find your subject wide open then stop down to finish the shot. 28mm reversed onto a full set of tubes gets very close to 4:1 reproduction and is a heck of a lot less expensive than an MP-E 65.

My lens set up costs about +/- $50, I use old Pentax M42 tubes.

User ID

If a lens lacks a functional mechanical aperture control ring, reversing it will be problematic. In general, zooms are a PITA when reversed. Worse yet, some will be focused to a plane almost inside the lens (IOW no working distance).

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Even with an old non electronic lens with reqisite aperture ring, some of those lenses are normally open and some are normally closed. The difference is by camera brand. Pentax-K, Minolta and Nikon are ideal. Avoid FD and OM. With M42 you need lenses with an "A-M" switch (like old Pentax).

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

Kiron 105 f/2.8 👍

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I've not seen that anyone has mentioned that the Micro Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 (current model) is available refurbished from Nikon in their current sale for $599. That sale ends today.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Yes, they are Komine and have the 28 sn prefix. And are in mint contion. I love them.

User ID

Well acoarst vivitar outsources everything. "Vivitar" is just a label. Theres no vivitar factory and never was one.

The name itself is just plain silly marketing:
"Vivi" as in "vivid" plus "tar" as in "Summitar".

Theres a whole set of word endings that are used in marketing just cuz they sound like optical tradition or quality:
tar
nar
kon
cron
non

Theres more. The use of K and N is popular. Its NOT about Nikon. Its about the western spelling of Japanese terms in their optical industry ... kogaku, konishiroku, etc. Thaz where names like Konica and Nikon come from. They are contractions, acronyms, mash ups, etc.

Acoarst theres also borrowing from the Germans who borrowed from the Greeks (Summicron, etc).

Mitakon ? Rokinon ? Thaz just like Vivitar. Sounds good, means really nothing. "TT Artisans", "Pearl River", or "Zhong Yi" is certainly more honest !

From out in left field, Canon is a version of Kwanon (god of mercy) and Minolta is idiomatic for "prosperity" or "success".

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

There is a cheap, and painless solution to finding an adapter to hold the aperture open for reverse mounting a lens. For A-mount lenses, I have one of the old manual set of extension rings that do not have the feed through connections. The end that a lens would mount into has a lever to open the aperture up all the way. And this end piece can be unscrewed from the stack and provide the means to hold that aperture open when the lens is reversed. And it is very inexpensive. See:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/193638037893?hash=item2d15b9f985:g:qAAAAOSwCXlfPsRi

The first attached image shows it mounted on a reversed Minolta 28mm f2.8 lens. The reversing adapter I had was a 49mm to A-Mount adapter. But I no longer have an A-mount camera. So, I adapted that to E-mount so as to use my Sony A7iii. This added more distance which resulted in even greater magnification. One additional thing to point out is the shorter the focal length of the reversed lens, the greater the magnification will be. If I had used a 50mm lens, the magnification would have been less. You can see the part of the adapter that moves the aperture adjustment on the lens.

The second image is a rose leaf closeup and I apologize for this handheld shot under windy conditions in which I did this just now in order to show an example. I had to get real close, and also find an angle that the lens didn't cast a shadow onto the leaf, and to time my shot so that the wind slowed down just a bit. Adding this image to give an idea of the amount of magnification that I got from this reversed lens.

A third image is taken using a 50mm lens instead of the 28mm, and you can see how much less magnification there is. Excuse the fact that the leaf is certainly not a flat object, and only a small area of it is sort of in focus due to my hand holding again.

I suppose such sets of extension tubes are available for other camera brands also.

I also do have the A-Mount extension tubes that do have the connections pass through, and this could work too. But it is thicker (even the thinnest ring in the set of three) and would have made it more difficult to get enough light onto the subject.

stogieboy Loc: Marlboro, NY

Being that there are 5 pages to this thread, I'm sure you have more than you need to go on. Personally, I have (and LOVE) the Nikon 105mm for my D750, it is a fantastic lens.

It really depends what you're doing with it. I used to have shorter lenses, and they're great for still life, but I wanted to capture the bees in my yard, and just couldn't get that close to them with the shorter focal lengths, so I went with the 105mm.

If you're setting up still life, the shorter lengths will work very well for you, and will save you some money.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Discovered that I did have a lens reversing ring for E-mount and redid the example with the 28mm lens. The A-mount to E-mount adapter was about 28mm in thickness which held the lens farther away from the sensor making the magnification be greater than when it is held closer.

Image 1 is with the extra adapter, and notice that the magnification is stronger.

Image 2 is without a 28mm adapter making the lens be closer to the sensor.

Keep in mind that the leaf is not flat and only one area is in focus in each image.