How to make a cheap and easy macro lens

Today I'm going to show you a cheap and easy way to take make a lens for "macro" photography.

As this is a "cheap and easy" way to do it, there are some drawbacks;
There will be no autofocus, and the DoF (Depth of field) is very very shallow.

Step 1 What you need.

Canon 35-80mm lens and a craft knife blade.

I am using a lens from a Canon 1000f, I picked this up for about £10 (camera included)
and this lens is ideal as there is no need to unscrew anything.

And any scalple, x-acto knife, craft knife blade will do.

Comments

[smurfsahoy]

No... just, no.

Go on amazon and search for a macro reversing coupling or adapter or something like that.

It is about $7 and screws into your filter threads on one side and your camera body on the other, allowing you to reverse the lens easily... and it can be taken off to allow you to use the lens normally. AND it will work much better than this.

[Ohsay]

really? I'll give that a little dabble. and pray that I dont shatter anything :|

[Ohsay]

Tried the removing the elements, just took a toffee hammer to front and the back, loose you dont get as close in with my way, and focus isnt improved that much.

also I cant use it as a normal lens now, d'oh.

also, shooting at about f/16+ with a flash results in a greatly increased DOF

[rndmnmbr]

Rumor has it that if you remove the front and rear lenses from the focusing group of the 35-80mm, leaving the middle lens, and reinstall it, it produces a superb macro lens, with decent DOF and still able to focus. I tried it myself, but shattered the middle lens while extracting the rear lens.