First Attempt

I can't believe how well this actually works...

After doing a bit of googling, I discovered the practice of attaching a normal lens backward to the camera with a cheap (sub $3.00 on ebay) adapter.

All are taken with a 5d mkiii, a 50mm f/1.4 (reversed w/ adapter) f/13 aperture, a 430ex II with a cheap inflatable ebay diffuser.

C&C always welcome. This was my first attempt, so I'm looking to improve.

great start Leffe67, the light came out well for an inflatable diffuser

Thanks. It was a bright day, so I'm sure that was helpful. Not to mention bright enough to facilitate finding focus in the viewfinder with a fixed aperture of f/13.

great start

is that a dead dragonfly? if not how did you get it to land and stay?

nice start..........

CanonXtiDude wrote in post #14819318
is that a dead dragonfly? if not how did you get it to land and stay?

Nope, chased it around my neighbor's yard for a few minutes. As long as I crept up slowly, it didn't mind me taking photos. It seemed to prefer landing on the small green posts which are in place to keep my neighbor's plants upright, so it became a bit more predictable after a few minutes.

Good captures- some blown highlights.
I actually have some canes around my garden just for dragonflies to perch on

Brian v.

Great series...Love the colors and fine detail.

Nice series

Excellent work, even more so for a first attempt.

Thanks all.

I found this little exercise to be enormously fun. I like shooting birds too, however, this seems much more interactive (as opposed to stalking birds). Looking at my composition, I only have one specimen completely in the frame. As I'm not using AF (and actually just focusing using distance), I was pretty limited on my ability to get the whole subject in view. I was a little hesitant to try to focus manually using my 50 f/1.4 reversed as I have heard horror stories about stripping gears while the lens isn't focused to infinity. As it's mounted backward, I would imagine this putting a lot of pressure on those components, but I don't know. I'll have to play around with that a bit and try to get everything in the frame.

I have previously never looked at a "daddy-longlegs" (as I know it) in any detail. I can't believe how wild that thing looks close up.

I'm also surprised at just how hairy all these little creatures are...