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Can You Help a Girl Out?
Can you help a girl out? It’s time I invest in my very first real macro lens. I think Nikon calls it Micro, right? Not sure why, but I really feel that spring time is macro lens time. Getting down and dirty on muddy floors just so I can photography a few flowers. Yup, that’s the life!
I love taking close-ups. Now that it’s almost summer I really want to start doing some macro work. Been looking around for a decent lens, but because they’re pretty expensive—especially the Nikon lenses—I’m careful with hasty decisions. My current (Old. Really old) lens does have a macro function, which comes in handy with food photography but isn’t not really all that. It’s basically optimized for focus but it’s nothing you can shoot serious macro work with.
To all you macro photographers out there: what brand do you own, what focal-length, and what are the pro’s and con’s in your opinion?
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Hey Kay,
I’ve been doing some macro photography with a canon 350d (and later 30d) + 60mm 2.8 lens (so not much help for a Nikon girl). I’d recommend having a look on dpreview.com, most of the time you can get an idea of what’s out there, but as always, ultimately it’s a subjective decision.
A “macro” mode on a lens is not quite a macro lens. With a macro lens you’ll get a 1:1 magnification ratio (that is, the subject will appear life size on the sensor), while with a lens with a “macro” range, you’ll typically get 1:0.40 ratios (so less than half life size).
Hope this helps somewhat.
@ Radu:
The macro setting on my lens is basically an optimization for focus, but has little to do with real macro photography. Too bad I can’t go to a store and just test a few lenses before buying because whoa, they’re expensive.
Have you tried? You’d be surprised, some shops might actually let you try them out. An alternative are shops where you can rent lenses, depending on the prices it might be worth for a fun weekend.
Hi Kay,
Im a Nikon shooter as well, I have the Nikon 105mm 2.8 lens and its great for macro. The only probs I find with it, is its focusing, it really really sucks! I pretty much always have to shoot in manual mode. If you have it auto focus mode, it tends just to focus in & out and will just not focus! The bokeh or depth of field is pretty good. The quality of the photos is fantastic, I use it on a D700. The other draw back I find, is when Im shooting close up of babies, its really diffucult to use, you dont always have the room to move back to take pics. I plan to get the 60mm for portraits but use the 105mm for bugs, flowers and any weird things that need REAL close : ) I do love it and I dont mind using manual. If you can, see if you can hire it first, there might be some stores that hire out gear. Thats what I generally do before any major purchases. Let me know if you have any other questions. I would be glad to help as best as I can.
Most of the pro gear stores usually hire out gear. Im sure there was a couple of stores that did hire out gear there when I was living there waaay back. Cant remember the names though. Might be worth while calling around to check.
We have a really nice camera shop in our area and the gentleman there is VERY adept at understanding and explaining what lenses do. They also have rentals, and if you want to rent a lens to see what it does you could do that…. or check for an online rental service. Rent one for a few days or a week, see what it does, then return it and go buy one just like it. OR, if you have a friend in your area that has a macro lens, see if you could borrow it. Just a thought.
Good luck.
I shoot with Canon products and I don’t own a macro lens either (Not yet anyway)
Di
I have a Nikon D300 and use the Nikon 85mm Micro VR lens, I love it and would suggest you bite the bullet and buy the Nikon lens to match your camera………
I use canon equipment, but the rules for a good macro setup apply to any brand.
Personally my FAVORITE macro setup is a little unorthodox, but works wonders. Find some good “macro tubes”- you place them between the lense and the body of the camera, drastically reducing the focal length. I bought a Kenko set, cost me over a hundred- but it has electronic contacts to pass autofocus and other information to the camera. with these, ANY lense becomes a macro lense– but personally I get my best results with my best glass, a 70-200 f/4L. At 70mm with the smallest of the three kenko tubes on it I can get a macro of a cats nose from 10′- with the biggest it’d be about 3′, and with all three the focal distance is basically at the end of the lens (Picture of salt grains, anyone?)
The only limiting factor at that point becomes light and your ability to hold the camera steady- which even if you’re captian spazoid you can get a good shot with a high shutter speed- you just need lots of light :) For this, I picked up a cheap ring flash. unfortunately it doesnt support high speed sync so I’m limited to no faster than 1/250 exposure. A *good* ring flash would be great, but cost more than a decent lens.
If you’re a skeptic, you can buy cheap junk extension tubes for your lense mount type on ebay for $10- just try it. these cheap ones wont pass digital info to and from the camera, so you get no aperature control or anything electronic– but it will be awesome enough to make you want good ones :)
Note that a smaller aperature means a deeper depth of field– a too shallow DOF quickly becomes a problem getting the shot you want with this equipment. AP control can give you more DOF, at the cost of light. Did I mention you need alot of light?
I just recently purchased the Tamron 90mm 2.8 macro. It’s my first macro lens and macro is so much harder than I thought, but I’m really impressed with the lens so far. It’s very sharp…sharper than my Nikkor 50mm 1.4G for sure. I’ve also been using it as a portrait lens and it works very nice for that. It focuses a bit slower than my non-macro lenses, but that’s normal from I’ve read. :)
Hi Kay,
It would be helpful to know more about your camera(I know you said Nikon, but is it DX or FX format, will it accept all lenses or is limited), your reasons for wanting a macro lens, etc.. You seem to be doing some nice food closeups with what you have.
Back in the day, I used a Nikkormat FTN with a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 as my normal lens. It was pretty sharp! It also came with an extension tube to achieve a 1:1 reproduction ratio. I rarely used it as a macro. I also had adapter rings that allowed me to mount my lenses on the camera backwards. This effectively turned any lens into a macro lens. I like como’s extension tube idea. I’ve used these before with success. While they can be cumbersome and have a limited useful focussing range, they’re much less expensive than a “macro” lens.
Good luck!
George
@George:
My lens allows me to get a little closer to my food than normal lenses would, but I just want to do some real full-blown macro photography. Preferably flowers, garlic bulbs etc. If I can use it for my food photography or portraits as well that’s great, but not strictly necessary.
Currently shooting with a Nikon D700!
Lucky you! I’ve been coveting the D700. Check out www.naturfotograf.com/lens_spec.html for the review of the new AFS Micro-Nikkor 60 mm f/2.8 ED G N. It’s not too expensive(~$600US) compared to the zooms and still seems like it would be pretty versatile. If that gets you too close for comfort, you could switch to DX mode and it becomes a 90mm. Or look at the 105mm micro-nikkor (~$985US). Or you could try a vintage manual micro-nikkor. Look for the AI or AI-S versions, otherwise I don’t think they’ll fit your D700. I don’t know much about the non-nikon brands except that I’ve heard some people praise Tokina. Check out http://www.kenrockwell.com/tokina/100mm-f28.htm. I’d go to a reputable camera store that sells pro quality equipment. Around here they let you try things out in the store. You may also find a place that sells used equipment. Just be sure to check the lens compatibility info that should have come with your camera.
Good Luck again!
George
I believe Kamera Express offers a rental service– you can try out a lens that way.
http://www.kamera-express.nl/over-ons/verhuurservice/;pgid=PVl2SByNtipSR0wpp18hNEH50000_YjSh_Mw;sid=40UDGi-AVk0DGmJm2B4QKCyKPN0t5DW_8zU=
And there may be other rental services in the Netherlands. There’s several in the States and in the UK. You might want to check in it before sinking a lot of money in a lens!
@Nicole:
Funny enough I just had a discussion with my guy about wanting to rent a lens first to get a feel for it before actually buying it!
Lately, I have been so in love with reverse macro, and the adapters are cheap. Here is a *decent* article about the equiptment, and the good thing is most of the adpaters are less than $50 for a whole new look on your photos. I find that I can’t use my macro lens in my tiny kitchen so I like the reverse macro adapter rings
http://www.photopoly.net/5-pieces-of-equipment-to-venture-into-macro-photography/
Here are some shots just using the reverse macro ring and a prime lens, they are of bugs so not nearly as yummy as what you want to shoot:
http://digitalphotographer.com.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=13241