Originally posted by pathdoc Nice.
I've tried this without the hood and with the lens stopped down with my finger on the aperture lever. Some true genius (I forget who, which is a shame because they really do deserve the credit) suggested getting one of those cheap Pentax-Sony adapters that has a manual aperture manipulator and use that as a combined hood and stopdown control, so that I wouldn't have to be touching the rig and could trigger it with a cable or time release. I considered it, but I am worried that the length of it would be such as to prevent getting the requisite close subject distance.
Thanks! I was so excited with the incredible magnification that I forgot to do my homework and see if anyone had already done it and how...
I think it's indeed a better idea to use one of those adapters and gain aperture control. In my case I had to hold the aperture fully opened with a t-shaped plastic piece (big enough not to fall inside the lens), as this 3D-printed hood doesn't do it by itself. It's based on a rear cap 3D model which I altered to include a hole and the protruding hood. I didn't think about it in the first place as it was made for use with a reversed A50 f/1.7, which of course has an aperture ring, and thus an aperture coupling on the hood would be redundant and less functional (fixed).
As for the working distance to the subject, it's about 5 centimeters from the rear element, so my hood is a little bit too big, but one of the aforementioned adapters would be just fine, I guess...