I have just read John Shaw's Close-ups in Nature looking for advice in the 2 to 5 times magnification range. In that range, he says, do not use very long extension tubes, bellows or the like. In stead stack one lens inverted on the front of another (longer focal length sitting normally on the camera body, and a shorter lens stacked front to front on the first one). For that you will need something like a filter ring with male threading sticking out in both directions. Does nayone know of a supplier of such a gizmo?

Thanks,

Peter Ulvskov

-- Anonymous, October 11, 1998

Answers

Konica Reversing Ring

Hi Peter, Konica made the reversing ring you are looking for. In the Konica Extension Ring Set III the parts were as follows; 1/ Camera Ring, 5mm 2/ Extension Ring, 8mm 3/ Extension Ring, 16mm 4/ Extension Ring, 24mm 5/ Lens Ring, 5mm 6/ Reverse Ring, 30mm

The reversing ring could be used by itself( with the camera ring that went next to the body of the camera) or in conjunction with all the extension tubes. The entire Extension Ring Set used with a reversed 28mm/f3.5 lens will give you a magnification of 4.79 times larger than life size! The actual magnification varies with the lens you use and can be used on the 28,35, 50, 52, 57. Thats a lot of magnification. I have seen a few of these these sets so they may not be to hard to get. good luck.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 1998

re:55 mm two-way filter threading for close-up

I have been looking for the same ring, but haven't found it. So I built one myself by glueing two 55 mm Cokin (?) filter adapters together. These are adapters for a universal filter sytem and have a big ring atached to the thread, which gives a large surface for mounting them together.

Martin

-- Anonymous, November 19, 1998