Studio Alegria - Image Fusion Studio Blog

Many times when we are called on to do product photography the products are a lot smaller than we bargained for. In some cases less than one inch in height. Jewelry falls in to that category many times and so do coins, electronic parts and other just tiny stuff.

The natural reaction is to break out the macro lens. Macros give good magnification and performance and you normally have one in the bag of tricks. A good macro lens is going to provide a very decent image at a high magnification.

This game piece from Monopoly Here and Now Edition is a great example of a really small product shot a magnification of about 1 to 1. This image was shot using constant lighting f11 @1/5 ISO 100 using a Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6 DG macro
This is not a lens that I would normally use for commercial work. But it is a very popular consumer lens and as you can see it does give a decent result.

One thing that is apparent in this image is the very quick fall off of depth of field. If you look at the handle of the coffee cup it has dropped to less than tack sharp as well as the back of the cup. In many cases this is acceptable and fairly normal. Macros will have a very limited depth of field, so initial focus is critical.

As a professional photographer creating images for commercial customers we must deliver a higher level of quality for our images … our customers dont expect acceptable … they expect outstanding. To deliver outstanding high magnification images we go old school. We use the venerable and simple reversing ring for many projects.

The reversing ring is a low tech approach to pretty darn good - high quality macro work.

This simple device fits like a filter to the front of your lens.

Take your lens out of aperture lock if there is one installed on the lens. On the Nikkor lenses the is a little slider below the wide open setting. You should be able to move the aperture ring freely.

The lens with the reversing ring then fits to the body of your camera.

NOTE: Be very very careful attaching the lens with the reversing ring installed to the camera body. It should attach like a normal lens . Do not force it. You may damage your camera body if you do

Notice from the picture that the aperture is closed down. Using the reversing ring is a manual process and to make it even more challenging for some photographers the thumb wheels for aperture will not work. You will have to set the aperture manually.

Once this is set up your camera goes on to your tripod. Get in close to your subject with the tripod. Your focus distance is going to be between 2 and 4 inches from the subject Make sure that your tripod can get in that close.

Because there is a very very limited DOF with using the reversing ring your base focus must be spot on.

Open your aperture fully and compose and focus your shot . Your focus ring on the lens will be about useless. I have found that the best way to do focus for the very small items is to set the camera so that the focus is close and then move the item to achieve sharpness.

Once you get every thing set just so. Take a test shot (using a cable release if you have it). You are ensuring that your central focus is on target. Don’t be alarmed when you see the narrowest Depth of field that you have ever experienced with your camera. This is very normal.

Once you have established the critical focus take a stop down the lens to about f11 and take a meter reading. You will likely find that your exposure times may be impressive. Thats ok That is why you have a tripod. It is not unusual to see 1/2 to 2 second exposures based on your lighting setup.

Your aperture setting is going to effect your DOF so the more that you can close down the wider DOF you will have.

This image was shot F22 and 1/2 second @iso 100

Note that the image is clean and sharp except for the very bottom. There was a bit of latitude there to blow a bit more of the background and not over expose the central image and for a client I would have gone to 3/4 a second just for the sake of the background.

This brings up a critical point. Use of the reversing ring requires light and lots of it because you are going to stop down so much to get that razor sharpness.

The reversing ring is a slight pain to use because it is a fully manual process and requires lots of light and critical attention to focus and Depth of field. It is truly an old school technique that has been just about forgotten in our new digital world of photography. But, the reversing ring is a very low cost highly effective tool for the commercial photographer that wants to get fantastic detail on high magnification shots such as this.

If you go into your local camera store looking for a reversing ring, they will likely look at you like you have lost your mind. The best place that I have found to find them is Ebay. You order sizes based on the filter size of the lens that you want to use it on. (I suggest primes because they tend to be sharper) The rings should be no more than a few dollars.

I hope that this gives you some ideas on on the way an old school commercial photographer approaches very small items. If you have any questions please leave me a comment and I will get back to you !

NEW ADDITION :

Hyperfocal over at DP Challenge makes a great point about the Nikon BR-2A reversing ring.

I’d suggest anyone looking to reverse a lens on a Nikon get the Nikon BR-2a (not the older BR-2). It is a lot more precise than the ebay cheapies and is never going to touch the electrical contacts.

I also recommend using the Nikon BR-3 when the lens is reversed. It acts as protection of the rear element, which typically don’t have as durable lens coatings as front elements since they weren’t designed to be exposed. Also the BR-3 besides being a functional lens hood also allows filters to be used.

BR-3

For Nikon users that don’t mind spending the extra $$$ this is absolutely the best way to go.