EF 35-80mm for macro.

I have one of these lenses laying around and i've read a bunch of posts from people saying if you remove the front element, that you'll have a great macro lens. then i found this link

http://www.pbase.com/j​abtas/canon_3580

those are great results, i think i'd like to try removing the front element, but could anyone walk me through it? i have no idea what im doing.

well. after several tense minutes, i got bored and decided to hack away at it with a hammer and a screwdriver.


needless to say...that was a bad idea.

...just joking. i figured out how to remove it!

Wait, you take a cheapo lens, remove the front element and then its a macro? It's that easy?

Ok, so hows it done?

well. i took the lens. removed the sticker that said 35-80 that was right under the filter ring. removing the sticker exposed three screws, so i unscrewed them, and that was it.

What distance are you from the subject at 80mm?

i have no idea, but i keep bumping into whatever im shooting, so im guessing only an inch or so. if i knew how to measure it i would.

Thanks for the info. I quess that's the difference. A macro lens of say 135mm allows me to be feet away to get that shot. Although maybe not with that much manification. I am using a m42 lens that is 135mm with extentions. I'm have to test that minimum size/distance.
Thanks..

Awesome, thought I would bring this thread back up as I am doing the same thing. I will post some of my pix later

I bought a Rebel film peice just for this lense to do this mod, untill reading this I never knew I could simply remove three screwes and leave the body intact.



Here are sample pix people, simply awesome.
http://www.pbase.com/j​abtas/canon_3580

Wow, I have to say this is going to take some practice, the AF is soooo damn well, un-controlled.... It seems like it needs tons of light too to make crisp pictures.
Being that it is 5am I will wait till about 10:30 untill I venture out for some pictures.

wow this is cool!

For close macro work, I always manual focus anyways. When your subject takes up like 5/6th of your frame and has lots of depth, it seems easier to me to manually choose the area I focus on.

man, I never knew this. too bad I gave this old old lens away.

picturecrazy wrote in post #5243753
too bad I gave this old old lens away.

Luckily for me you gave me this lens.

Maybe I'll give it a try, but don't want to ruin the lens.
I'd like to know more about this setup though.

you have the 17-50 already, and probably never use the 35-80. That makes the 35-80 a prime target for hacking. Heck, I hack even my GOOD lenses.

do it and be sure to tell us how it goes and show us the shots you get.

Didn't really need to hack it.
It's a bit different than the pictures above where there was no sticker, but a plastic ring. I did not have to take out any screws or anything. Just pop off the plastic ring, twist the front lens off. Now I have a macro lens.

Heh, I own this lens too .

Can someone post 100% crops? How sharp is it?

wow paul, that's some RAZOR thin DOF! How big is that flower? That looks like it's better than 1:1, which is more than my 60mm macro. The 35mm shot looks more like what I can get on the 60mm, if I'm judging the actual size of the flower correctly. The min focusing distance must be REALLY close!

Get against a wall, bounce some flash and set it F/22 and take a picture of a penny or something. I'm really curious to see how close you can actually get.

The 35-80 is an old junker, I'd just pop (or break) the glass out of the front element frame and put the front back on so it looks normal and you can use the lenscap again. I'm guessing you'll use this lens a heck of a lot more as a macro than as a normal range zoom.