Doug Otto Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
Hi folks,
I was looking online for a lens reversing system that allowed electrical control of the lens. A found a few but they were $400-500. I've always been a bit of a technology geek so I thought that I'd share the weekend project. I started with an old EF-S 18-55mm lens. Being an EF-S mount it doesn’t fit on my Canon 5D so it’s just been gathering dust. I got the wild idea that it would be fun to see if I could get the lens to mount, reversed, and still have electrical control from the camera body.
I started by removing the lens mount and modifying it to make it the same size as a standard EF mount. Once that was done I installed a ribbon cable between the lens mount and the lens. Using an old filter as a spacer, I attached the front of the lens to the modified lens mount. On, what used to be the back of the lens, I added a mounting plate for my Canon MR-14EX ring flash. A few dabs of hot glue to keep cables from moving around and it was done.
This is my son’s pocket knife blade at ~ 2:1 magnification. With the lens at 55mm it’s roughly 1:1. It’s not going to win any beauty contests but I am very pleased with how well it works. While auto focus still technically works, it’s a bit sketchy. Aperture control, however, works just fine. The lens even reports itself correctly in the EXIF information. For a lens that is worth about $50 it does a pretty nice job.
It was a fun project and I can't wait to do more exploring with it.
Cheers
|