How to work a macro lens reverse ring?

I just bought a lens reverse ring for my Nikon D7000 18-105mm lens. I've tried adjusting the aperture, zoom, and shutter speed; everything is still out of focus.

With the reverse ring, everything automatic becomes manual. Be ready to use elbow grease.

If your lens doesn't have an aperture ring, you will be stuck to the smallest aperture size. Not good. You will need to use the upper middle values to get a decent DOF but for focusing, go wide open (smallest f/number).

Zoom remains the same. Start at shortest focal length and creep zoom very slowly to get the magnification you want. Focus first using your feet then the focus ring then for fine tuning, rock the camera back and forth very slowly until you get it right. That is if you don't have macro rails at your disposal.

You need a different lens, such as "d" lens.AF-D lenses, such as the Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8D have aperture rings that you can manually adjust the aperture. "G" lenses, such as your 18-105mm do not have such an aperture ring.

Next, you need to put the camera into manual exposure, and adjust the shutter speed (on the camera), and aperture (on the lens), as well as manually focusing the lens. It matters not if the lens is AF or not as the electrical connection between the lens and camera are disconnected when using a reversing ring.

An alternative - if you want to use a "G" lens, is to jamb a piece of paper into the aperture mechanism to force adjusting the aperture. However, I dislike that approach as you could get something stuck in the lens. Youtube should have a few examples on how to do this.

This can be a lot of hassle and a lot of people don't have the correct lens, so they end up buying extension tubes. And they usually start out with the cheap $10 tubes and find out they have the same problem.

So the next step is to buy a set of Kenko tubes with the electrical contacts in them so they can maintain autofocus and auto exposure. But these are $200 a set.

And finally, after using extension tubes, anyone really wanting to do macro ends up buying a macro lens. They start out at $270 (Nikon AF-S 40mm f/2.8 micro) and go up in price from there.