So we went to the castle up the road.

And the kids played, and I conned them into sitting for a few pictures against the beautiful rocks of the castle.

Ring on my tree - 68mm f/3.2 1/320

Ring on my tree - with reverse lens 50mm applied. f/3.2 1/320

Look at how shallow the depth of field is!

I was reading today on the internet (as I am want to do at times) – and I stumbled across a phrase I had never heard before: “Shoot through my lens backwards.”

Never fear, Google is here! But that yielded little results.

I tried a few different ways of putting it, and finally “reverse lens macro technique” did the trick. Obviously I read a couple different tutorials about this sweet little trick, but I thought I’d put my own out there, under “shoot through my lens backwards” in case anyone is looking.

Two pennies on my piano bench. 70mm focal length.

One penny with reverse lens trick applied.

In the case of the penny pictures seen above, neither picture is cropped. The first picture shows the maximum frame coverage of the pennies (how close I could get to them) while keeping them in focus. The second shows how close I can get with the backwards lens macro technique. Nifty, I say. Again, notice the DOF on that penny!

So basically, here’s the rundown – you need TWO lenses for this technique. I used one zoom lens (Canon 24mm-70mmL) and one prime (50mm), but I suppose you could use any combo of lenses you chose. One lens is mounted to your body (I left my default 24-70 on), and the other is pushed up against the first lens backwards (so your back glass is actually facing out away from the camera body). Make sure both your lenses are set to “Manual Focus” -there will be no more focusing than the minute movements of moving back and forth, closer and further from your object of photograph. Also, on my off body lens (my 50 mm in my case) I made sure it was wide open (1.8). The on body lens was set to “manual” so I could adjust aperture and speed manually. Because you are shooting macro, high speed is a must to ward off camera shake. I shot most images at f2.8/what ever speed I could get away with.

That’s it. Now just point your lenses to some object, get in close (sometimes within an inch or less!) and be ready to click.

This technique (perhaps particularly with the lenses I used) has SUCH A SHALLOW DOF! It was amazing to me! Just breathing could bring one thing out of focus and another in. This means I took two or three shots to get the focus point I wanted. But it yields some gnarly results (can I use that word?)

Try it!

PS – Notice the excessive amount of vignetting on the macro images? This is due (I imagine) in large part to the fact that my lenses are two different circumferences. The 24-70 is very large with a 77mm diameter. The 50mm 1.8 is only 52mm. So part of the frame was literally black, not looking at anything but the ring (and my hand) as I held the second lens up.

Glitter Snowflake

Glitter Snowflake Macro

Nutcracker

Nutcracker Macro

Fly in the windowsill (ew, I know).

Fly macro

Winter Ice

Winter Ice Macro

Olivia

Olivia Macro

I know I said I’d get these to you a few days ago . . .Time never goes as planned.

Here she is. Isn’t she lovely? But then, you all ready knew that.

Love,

Anj

Here is a little snowflake I created in AI – uh oh. Now you know what my Christmas cards are going to look like

I’ve set it up as PSD file WITH a custom shape (snowflake) so you can scale it/change it’s color to what ever your little heart desires.

This could be cute for cards (if you don’t think so, don’t tell me – my christmas cards, remember?)

or a template for cut outs

or background paper

or christmas ornaments

or gift tags

or anything else you creative people can think of.

If you do use it, would you please send me a pic of how/what you used it for so I can see. It would make me happy.

And now – for you:

Snowflake Card.PSD

PS – Olivia wants Alea and Weston to come to her birthday party this weekend. But she understands if you can’t make it

PSS – See the rest of your pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25017151@N06/sets/72157625110993615/