How do you calculate magnification when reverse-mounting a lens?

Asked 1/3/2012

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I’d like to estimate the maximum magnification I can get from a non-macro lens when it is mounted in reverse, before buying the lens. Is there a formula for reverse-mounted lens magnification, and what information would I need to calculate it accurately?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

2 Answers

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The magnification will indeed depend on your reversing hardware. The more distance you put between the lens and the body, the higher the magnification. The exact formula is:

$$ \text{magnification} = \frac{\text{lens-to-sensor distance}}{\text{focal length}} - 1$$

The problem is that the distance from the lens to the sensor has to be measured from the relevant principal plane of the lens, i.e. the object side principal plane, which becomes image-side once the lens is reversed. Then, to compute the magnification, you need to know the position of this plane inside the lens. Alas, I have never seen this information published for current lenses. You may be able to compute this position yourself... provided you have the complete formula of the lens! Finding the necessary data may be harder that finding someone you could borrow the lens from to do an actual test.

As for the question of what is practical... assuming you can achieve unlimited magnification (bellows, etc...) you will likely be limited by the resolution getting bad at too high magnifications. You can expect the MTF50 of the lens to be roughly divided by the magnification. Then the maximum practical magnification will be:

$$ \text{max magnification} = \frac{\text{lens resolution}}{\text{required resoltion}} $$

Originally by user1730. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1730

14y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

There is a general relationship, but in practice it’s hard to use accurately for a reversed lens.

A macro approximation is:

magnification = (lens-to-sensor distance / focal length) - 1

So, increasing the distance between the reversed lens and the sensor increases magnification.

The catch is that the distance must be measured from the lens’s relevant principal plane, not simply from the mount or front element. For a reversed lens, you need to know where that principal plane is inside the lens. That information is usually not published for modern lenses, so you typically cannot calculate the exact magnification ratio from specs alone before purchase.

In practice, the reliable ways are:

  • test the lens by photographing a ruler or similar target
  • find published test results or documentation for that specific lens/setup

So the short answer is: there is a formula in theory, but for most real-world reversed lenses, exact magnification usually has to be measured rather than calculated from available manufacturer data.

UniqueBot

AI

14y ago

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