A little over a year ago I learned about this really cool thing that can be done with a DSLR (or regular SLR) and just about any lens that has a smallish filter size in the 50's. I think my grandmother had actually been trying to tell me about this but I didn't really listen since I had no clue what she was talking about.
Basically all you have to do is press that lens release button and tun that lens around. The part that usually attaches to the body, to the camera, faces away now.
Now is the challenge, trying to figure out how close this lens will allow you to get, really you just move in on an object and see when it comes into focus. This process is completely manually done. It really all depends on the lens. Through experimenting I learned that:
it seems that wider angle lenses like a 28mm or 35mm require you to be closer in order to get the subject in focus.
Lenses 50mm or so and up require you to be further from the object and allows for more of the overall subject to be in focus. really anything above 50mm isn't going to do much for you in the macro department.
I'm planning on taking plenty of example picture so that you guys can learn about what it is that I'm talking about here. Stay tuned, (I don't know what the internet version of that would be)
I've never really been all that great when I've had to manually focus my AF lenses for whatever reason. The problem is mainly my sensitivity to not really knowing if what my eye is seeing is what I want. I wear glasses and have yet to figure out if i have my camera's diopter set properly for my eyes.
The point of all that is just to share with you something I've been trying out. Manual lenses, i really have no clue how many people use old lenses with adapters and such, but I personally like it. I like having a new challenge, working with new apertures, new focal lengths and new minimum focusing distances. Three out of the four lenses i have so far are prime lenses (fixed focal length, i don't know which is proper).
I have a 50mm f/1.7 (i like that little extra i'm going to see if i can get some wider lenses at 1.8 or less)
I have a 35mm f/2.8 (haven't used it much, really just started using them last week)
I also have a 135mm f/2.8 (i spent some time working with it I'm not used to long lenses that are not zooms having a minimum focusing distance of 2m was interesting to say the least but I liked it.)
the last lens of this type (m42 originally for a Yashica film SLR, which I have) is a 85~205mm f/3.8 zoom lens.
my eyes aren't great neither is my skills with lighting so bear with me on the sharpness and lighting of the photos more the focus though.