My first attempts at Macro photography

I recently purchased a Canon FD mount 50mm 1.8 Prime lens in order to reverse mount on to my 450D DSLR.

I got the adapter in the post yesterday after waiting 10days for delivery from Hong Kong. I didn't think 10 days was too bad considering the distance travelled and especially considering the adapter cost less than 2GBP including postage.

To say i was excited about using the lens and adapter combo and experimenting with Macro photography was an understatement.

Wikipedia decibes macro photography;
'Macro photography  is extreme close up photography, usually of very small subjects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size.'

Reverse mounting a lens onto a camera is the cheapest way to get started in macro photography. Cheap has to best with me due to saving for a wedding, lets hope my fiance reads this to prove i do tell people im getting married.

When reverse mounted the lens and camera looks like this.

The first think that struck me is the incredibly small depth of field (the amount of image that's in focus) which doesn't seem to be adjustable.

Secondly due to the DOF (depth of field) and because its reverse mounted the focus distance is also very short; the lens has to be approx 5-10cm from the subject in order to achieve focus.

Good job i have a tripod.

The third issue is the small amount of light that passes through the lens either means long exposures (the time the shutter stays open ) or high ISO (how sensitive the camera is too light) are needed.

The following are examples of what can be achieved after 5 minutes of playing around with the set up.

Laura's engagement ring. This is the first photo i took.

A trophy that my car won at a car show.

Spider. I like how you can see hairs on the legs.

I really like this photo because of the colour and how well the the subject fills the frame, this photo has not been cropped.

Moisture on a weed which reminds me i need to get some Round Up.

Please feel free to comment.