Playing With Lenses: Let's have some DIY fun with the Canon Zoom Lens EF 35-80 1:4-5.6

A few months ago, I blogged about a cheap Canon zoom lens, and I ended the story with the suggestion to do something else with this lens. When researching this lens, I found a few people who modded the lens into a decent macro lens by removing the front element.

original lens

As this was a cheap kit lens, I saw no harm in taking it apart and make it useful for a different purpose. The front lens group can be removed by removing 3 screws on the top focussing barrel.

front lens group to be removed

Once the front element was removed, I use a hammer and screw driver to smash out the glass. No subtle process here. Make sure you remove any glass or plastic left behind so no particles can make it back into the lens.

front lens group after lens removal

Once ready, mount the front element back on the lens, this time with no lens remaining in the front element.

lens with the glass removed in the front lens group

Technically you are now complete, and you own a nice but cheap macro lens. Practically, you do want to protect the inside of the lens against dust, so mount a clear filter (I used a Kenko Skylight 1A that came with the lens) on the front element so the lens is again protected against outside elements.

The end result

As focussing was done with the front element, you now have lost that capability. Not a big issue as most macro photographers do not use auto-focus anyway. You just rock the camera back and forth until your subject is in focus.

The zoom capability remains, so you do have some flexibility in framing your subject. Do note that aside from being able to zoom in an out, also the depth of field is impacted. The more you zoom, the shallower the depth of field becomes. When completely zoomed in, the depth of field becomes extremely narrow and it is almost impossible to photograph live insects and get their eyes in focus. And forget about a complete focussed subject, unless it is in the same field, or you use a more advanced process of focus stacking (but that is not the topic of this blog).

Another problem is that because you have now converted to a Macro lens, you loose a lot of your incoming light, so high ISO will be required in order to maintain a fast enough shutter speed. Not a problem if you are not a pixel peeper. This can also be resolved by a ring or other macro flash, but remember, we are trying to keep things cheaply here.

So how much enlargement can you get? Let's do a simple test and take some shots of a Canadian 25c coin, roughly the same size as an APSC sensor.

zoomed out

zoomed in

As you can, see on the first shot, the coin is almost filling the picture, so roughly a 1:1 macro. On the second shot, we get damn close to a 2:1 enlargement. Very impressive as a 2:1 macro lens can range anywhere from $400 for a cheap version to over 1000$ or more for a brand macro lens. And I paid $11.99 for mine.

I can really say I had a lot of fun playing with this lens, looking around for little bugs and flower details. I'm absolutely positive I will be using this lens again. It's just to much fun!
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