What else can you do with a dedicated 90mm macro lens

[aakash_vakil]

Hello All -

I was just curious to know that apart from the obvious macro work, what else do people use the 90mm macro lens (which becomes 1.6times on crop sensor cameras.....so 144mm). I am not mentioning any brand here as the focal length is of my interest currently.

Is it used for portraits or a mid range telephoto? Why I ask is if I buy this lens and use it mainly for macro but also for some non-macro work then I get more value for my money.....

Any suggestions?

Regards,
Aakash

[crunch]

Well, I've don't know about the 90mm, but I've got the Canon 100mm macro, which is great for portraiture, gives you some working distance and a large f/2.8 aperture which is great for shallow depth-of-field and/or working indoors in poor light. I find my lens so sharp, I sometimes have to soften the pictures (of people, at least).

I imagine the 90mm would be the same, depending on the max aperture.

Is it used for portraits or a mid range telephoto?

Well, 144mm (or 160mm in my case) is a mid range telephoto. That does not mean you can't use it for portraits!

Because it has a large aperture, you can use it for anything that involves low light. But again that does not mean you can ONLY use it for low light.

Don't let your imagination hold you back!

[aakash_vakil]

Hi Crunch...

Thanks....your reply helps. I will now start looking at brands. Bent towards canon but will consider sigma and tamron as well.

Regards,
Aakash

[wulf]

All sorts of things. You can see pictures taken with my Vivitar 90mm f/2.5 macro on Flickr. As well as the macro focusing, it is a solid, robust lens that I use frequently because of it's sharpness and speed.

Wulf

[Stryker]

I totally agree about the ability of a fixed lens to take protraits, even if it is a mid range zoom. I have a 90mm Tamron Macro that can go down to f/2.4, which certainly helps in both low light as well as portraits. My flickr Portraits set has a few photos I took with this lens and as you can see it is very sharp indeed.

As crunch says, you may even have to soften images a bit, since it will tend to show every wrinkle with great clarity. I can certainly recommend this lens, as it is cheaper than the Canon or Nikon ones.