this morning I got a call from adorama, because of my purchase from the day before. So after I talked with this guy for a while...

...it was a long talk...

....which ended in me cancelling my order. Because the lens which I wanted to buy needed a special adapter to work on my camera. I highly appreciate the call and will get the correct lens maybe later in time.

But I'm always get frustraded when I want to buy something and cant get it. So I ended up with buying a used manual lens and a reversing ring for 100$. The lens is a Nikkor 200m F/4 AI.
Means I need to focus/meter manual, which makes it perfect for my purpose, cause I can't use these features anyway on my camera with a reversed lens.

I also can use this lens as a normal lens, but not for snapshots, cause I need todo all the metering manual. So I spend more time with a picture which should result in better pictures.

Complete Macro Stuff I own so far:

• BR-2A to mount a lens reversed to the camera
• BR-3 to mount a filter on the reserved lens and mainly for protection of the rear element
• Reversing 52mm adapter to mount 2 lenses together. You can use tape, but I'm afraid my lens falls of and for 9$ it should be ok.
  
• 50mm F1.8 lens basically a portrait lens and reversed a nice macro with a very short working distance
  
• 200mm F4 lens to play with and used for magnifications of 4:1

Stuff to buy in the future:

• nikon DR-6 viewfinder
  for more comfortable work and has a build in 2x magnification, so I can see better what I'm doing
• Bogen - Manfrotto 454 Micro Positioning Plate for focusing, my current technique with the tripod and a lens as table is very inaccurate and results in unsharp pictures
  
• nikon SC-29 to get my flash of the camera and to the actual subject
• books to improve my technique first
  

Now I just need to find some bugs to see if I can take pictures of them with this combination too see how it works.

what do you get with this combination

• reversed 50mm gives you roughly 1x life size at F1.8 max
  
• reversed 50mm on 200mm gives you 4x life size at F5.8 max ( F1.8 + F4 = F5.8)
• reversed 50mm on 300mm gives you 6x life size at F7.2 max
  

the formula for reversed lenses is

magnification = main lens/reveresed lens

Another common problem is the more you read about the topic, the more you get frustrated. An example is this page which basically comes to the point:

A macro is a nice toy but each animal runs away or attacks if you get to close. So maybe skip the macro, get some extension tubes and a long prime lens 200mm+

Which results into

A standard set of extension tubes consists of

• 12 mm
• 20 mm
• 36 mm

which can be combined. The formula is in this case

magnification = extension / focal length

This can now be combine with a reversed lens to get an even higher magnification, if your working distance is long enough. To get a longer working distance you can use

• longer lens ( example 68mm extension/200mm = 0.34 (1/3 life size)
• teleconverter
  
• diopters

so basically extension tubes allow you to focus much closer with a long lens like 300mm, but you loose some light and the possibility to focus at infinity. It's also a hassle to work with them. On the other hand a new macro cost 500$ or a used Nikon 300m F/4 cost 500$ in good to excellent condition.
Which gives you way more possibilities. Not only macro (with extension tubes/reversed lens), but also wildlife and birds with a very good quality.

the disadvantages

• macro lens
• expensive
• very special
• very slow focus
  
• reversed lens
• very short working distance
• no metering
• no autofocus
  
• teleconverter
• loss in sharpness
• maybe no metering
• maybe no autofocus
  
• diopters
• loss in sharpness
  
• extension tubes
• light falloff
• maybe no metering
• maybe no autofocus
  

At least I have now enough toys and to learn for the next couple of month. A very nice article about what is possible can be found here

...life is a compromise...
...so take what you have and do this best with it...