Macro shooting

[u8ky2]

Hey all! I was reading Pro Secrets To Dramatic Digital Photos - By Jim Zuckerman, and he was saying that you can make a telephoto lens into a macro lens with either an extension tube or diopters. How can a telephoto lens all of a sudden become a macro lens? Telephoto lenses don't have extremely large apertures like macro lenses do. That is another thing I don't get. Shooting, let's say, f/22 with a wide angle lens and then a macro lens. The background with the macro lens won't look tack sharp, but with the wide angle lens, it will. Why is that? Any advice would be appreciated. All I have is the kit lens (18-55) that my canon xs came with.

[i speak in math]

Originally Posted by u8ky2

Hey all! I was reading Pro Secrets To Dramatic Digital Photos - By Jim Zuckerman, and he was saying that you can make a telephoto lens into a macro lens with either an extension tube or diopters. How can a telephoto lens all of a sudden become a macro lens? Telephoto lenses don't have extremely large apertures like macro lenses do. That is another thing I don't get. Shooting, let's say, f/22 with a wide angle lens and then a macro lens. The background with the macro lens won't look tack sharp, but with the wide angle lens, it will. Why is that? Any advice would be appreciated. All I have is the kit lens (18-55) that my canon xs came with.

telephoto actually don't work well as macro with extenstion tubes because in order to get to 1:1 magnification, you need extension tubes equal to the focal length of the lens. That means with a 200mm lens, you would need 200mm of extension tubes. That would be really long and heavy and not practical for shooting macros. Alternatively, a 50mm lens only requires 50mm of extension tubes for 1:1.

Macro lenses do not, by definition, have large apertures. In fact, a regular 50mm lens will usually be faster than a macro 50mm lens (f/1.4 vs f/2.8).

Shooting f/22 with either a regular lens or a macro lens would give you a sharp background, but neither would be tack sharp due to diffraction. The difference is, the macro can focus so close to the lens, that it can reach 1:1 magnification, whereas with a typical lens, it may only reach 1:3 or smaller. It should be said that using extension tubes won't allow the lens to focus at infinity, but a dedicated macro will just fine.

[u8ky2]

That helps a lot.. thanks. Since all I have is the kit lens, what lens would you recommend I get next? I was hoping to buy a telephoto and get a diopter so it would be like a 2 in 1 lens. I'm mostly shooting nature, macro, landscape, etc. I have a tight budget, but I want to get a good quality lens. But since I only have a Canon xs, if I get a good quality lens, will the lower end camera not take good pictures? I'm hoping to eventually print my pics and sell them, but I'm not sure if they will look grainy. I brother just gave me a tripod, and next step is to buy a lens.