Next came the 7D...

Due to the experience with my gifted 60D and rescued Sigma lens I'd gotten a bit of a bug for what might be capable with other "junk" gear.

The answer came when a gentleman came into our store with a broken Canon 7D. He'd done his research online. He was pretty certain his camera was beyond cost effective repair. But he needed confirmation. He was correct. His camera wasn't worth repairing. It was a "fatal" error. Our customer left the store with a new Canon 7Dii and the broken camera was left for disposal. 

I own a 7D and know what a fabulous camera it is so I wasn't immediately inclined to toss the broken 7D. Maybe I would need parts or something. I took the camera home and then one day decided to play with it. I put a battery in it and fired off a few shots. It seemed to work perfectly. Until I mounted a lens on it. Locked up and dead. After removal of lens and battery I tried again. Sure enough camera worked seemingly perfectly without a lens. Maybe a different lens would work. Nope. Locked again. It quickly became apparent this camera would operate just great with no lens attached. But what good would that do? 

When discussing macro reverse rings with a customer one day it struck me this might be the perfect solution for my "broken" 7D. A reverse ring allows a lens to be mounted backward on the camera providing for extreme macro photography. Wide angle lenses mounted backward allow for extreme magnification. Longer focal lengths provide less magnification. 

What if I mounted a lens backward on my 7D? It should operate just as if it had no lens at all right? 
Home I went with a reverse ring and another old lens I rescued from the trash. This time an old Sigma brand Nikon mount 28mm. 




With the reverse ring mounted, the lens contacts aren't making contact with anything so the broken body still works fine. 


With the lens mounted the contraption looks like this.

So I grabbed a dime and a nearby cable to put it to a test. 




With the 28mm I can get extreme close up - well beyond 1:1 magnification. Pretty cool! 
 But this might be too much for most work. Maybe 28 is too wide for many practical applications.

Let's see what else I can come up with...



With an old "junk" Nikon 55 macro reverse mounted I can still get very close but this degree of magnification might be much more practical. 







So now I'm more more determined than ever to go create some great images with this broken junk. And I'm more convinced than ever that an awful lot of great equipment that would otherwise be discarded still has some life and purpose. 





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