good macro lens for canon?

[monkey_soup]

Hey,

I have a Canon 400D and really want to try some macro photography with it. Can anyone suggest a good macro lens that will fit my camera?

Have read up on the idea of tubes/bellows, or reversing lenses... but not really sure I like the idea compared to buying a proper macro lens. Would it be worth me trying out tubes if I'm pretty sure I will end up getting a lens anyway?

Don't mind having to spend a bit on a lens... thinking about asking for it for my birthday

Any help greatly appreciated

[LoveDSLR]

Accessories maybe cheaper but the primary lens isn't optimized for macro.

Canon EF-S 60mm macro - EF-S only but smaller
Canon 100 macro - good (recommended)
Canon 180 L macro - better if you need longer focal length
Canon MP-E 65mm - if you need 1x-5x

[irispatch]

Tubes plus a dedicated macro lens is an excellent Macro set up. I use them with my 100mm 2.8 for some very nice close-ups.
Macro requires good lighting and especailly when using tubes, the onboard flash just isn't enough. either the Canon twin light or an external flash, either will also need difusers to soften the light and to direct the light.

[rpcrowe]

Macro vs. Extension tubes

Just about any macro lens (even the el-cheapo Phoenix) will provide good to excellent imagery. While, I don't necessarily recommend the Phoenix, it is a valid competitor to using extension tubes for a photographer on a tight budget.

Phoenix AF 100mm f/3.4 Macro Lens - A Nikonians Product Review

The Canon 100mm f/2.8 is a front-runner and the Canon 60mm macro is a runner-up. I don't like a macro lens as short as 60mm (even with a 1.6x camera) because you have to get the lens too close to the creepy-crawly creatures some of us like to photograph. Of course, the 50mm macros from Canon and Sigma are also in this category.

The 60mm Canon MPE lens is a very specialized tool and will only focus between 1:1 and 5:1 imagery. That means that you can get very close to your subject but it also means that you cannot cover a subject area larger than your sensor dimensions (36x24mm for full frame and 22.5x15mm for 1.6x sensors). It is an expensive lens but is not very versatile in other than its designated use. Obviously it will not focus to infinity.

You can use ALL other macro lenses for general photography since they will focus from 1:1 (or 1:2 for the Canon 50mm and Phoenix 100mm lenses without adapters) to infinity. In fact some of the macros make excellent short telephoto primes. My 90mm Tamron Macro is an excellent portrait lens if you have the space to accommodate its focal length. Some studios or living rooms are too small to shoot with a 90mm lens (144mm equivalent on a 1.6x camera).

The 150mm and 180mm macro lenses give you a very nice lens to subject distance but, you pay the price in both cost and weight of the lens.

I much prefer 90-100mm lenses for macro work. They give a decent lens to subject distance and they light weight. Also, you don't usually have to hock the homestead to buy one.

I use a 90mm Tamron f/2.8 lens which I absolutely love. I bought it used on eBay for less than $125 USD and it was in absolutely perfect condition. It is a great macro lens and it cost less than a set of good extension tubes.

Here is a comparison of some popular macro lenses. If it comes up in a foreign language, Google can translate it for you.

Objektiv-Testübersicht

And here is a review of the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro lens. By the way, Tamron has produced three 90mm macro lenses. The present issue is the Tamron SP AF90mm F/2.8 Di Macro 1:1. The lens previous to this is the non-DI model. I have this model and it provides top-line imagery. The imagery from that lens is right up there with my Canon L lenses.

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM vs Tamron SP Autofocus 90mm f/2.8 DI Macro Lens - photo.net

Either of the above two lenses is an excellent choice. However, Tamron once produced a 90mm f/2.5 macro lens with an "Adapt-All" mount, This is difficult or impossible to use on EOS cameras and the image quality was not all that great. Stay away from that one.

I personally like using macro lenses far-far better than worrying with extension tubes!

BTW: I recommend that you stay away from the "el-cheapo" extension tubes sold on eBay for ten or twenty dollars. They have no electronic connection to the camera and thus, you cannot control exposure (the lens won't stop down) and you cannot autofocus. The last is no great problem since most of us focus manually when shooting macros but, it is impossible to shoot a macro wide open.

You can achieve an image larger than 1:1 using a macro lens and an extension tube. However, you inherit all the problems of using tubes on other lenses; loss of light and very small area of focus are the main problems.

Finally: a sometimes low price macro solution for Canon cameras is to find a manual focus macro lens from another manufacturer (Canon EF lenses won't work) and use an adapter to fit it on your camera. You will need to focus manually, of course, but manual focusing is a way of life in macro photography.

Note: don't fall for the zoom lenses with the term "Macro or Micro" in their designation. These are NOT really "macro" lenses, only lenses which can focus fairly close.

B-T-W: You normally need supplemental lighting for macro photography but a ring light is not the only, nor the best, solution. Here is my setup using a discontinued Siegelite articulating flash bracket, a 550EX, a Lumiquest Mini Softbox and, of course, a Canon off camera cord.

[primo_pen]

What are extension tubes and how do they look? I beleive it's the first time I've heard of this as my interest in Macro photography grows.

[corry]

well i'm curious about this as well. I have a set of close up filters for my XTI that fit on my nifty fifty....as well i purchased a reversing ring but i guess i don't understand what a dedicated macro is compared to a normal zoom lens....or something like this one

Canon EF 35-70mm 3.5-4.5 Zoom lens EOS XTi Xsi MACRO on eBay.ca (item 230373842247 end time 07-Sep-09 21:00:00 EDT)

what are the specifics of a macro lens that make it better or more suited? i'd like something better for macro shots as well

[inkista]

Originally Posted by primo_pen

What are extension tubes and how do they look?

An extension tube is just a hollow tube that mounts between the camera body and the lens, to hold the lens further away from the body. The fancier ones include electronic contacts to pass information between the body and the lens, so you retain things like aperture control and autofocus. A tube set, like the one from Kenko, has three tubes of varying lengths, so that by "stacking" them in different combinations, you have a variety of extension lengths to choose from.

When you use an extension tube, you can only focus with the lens at a specific distance from the subject. Instead of picking your distance and focusing, as you can do with a macro lens, you focus by changing your distance.

But because there's no glass, there's no quality hit on the lens. Here's a shot I took of a quarter with my EF 50mm f/1.8 II, and all three tubes from the Kenko set stacked.

Originally Posted by corry

...i guess i don't understand what a dedicated macro is compared to a normal zoom lens....or something like this one

Canon EF 35-70mm 3.5-4.5 Zoom lens EOS XTi Xsi MACRO on eBay.ca (item 230373842247 end time 07-Sep-09 21:00:00 EDT)

what are the specifics of a macro lens that make it better or more suited?

Wow. I couldn't even find that lens in the Canon Camera Museum.

Typically, macro lenses are optimized for focus performance. Someone once told me that they usually have at least one floating element/group to help with this. That means, one of the glass elements in the lens doesn't rack in and out in concert with the others for focus. This is one of the reasons why macro lenses are almost always super sharp. But the word macro gets slapped onto consumer zoom lenses these days, too, and it actually doens't make it a "true" macro lens. You want a macro lens that does at least what's called 1:1 magnification--that is, the image on the sensor is the same size as the object.

As I mentioned above, the fun of a macro lens is that you have more freedom to choose your frame than with the "poor mans' methods" like lens reversal, or extension tubes. And, of course, you can use those methods with a macro lens.

Here's a shot of that same quarter, with my EF-S 60mm Macro, with the 50/1.8 reversed on the front of it (I used an $8 coupling ring and screwed the two lenses face-to-face by their filter threads).



I do wish I'd gotten the Pro Optic set of extension tubes instead of the Kenkos, because then I could've put the 60mm on extension tubes, too. The Kenkos can't mount EF-S, sadly, without taking a Dremel tool to them. Not to mention the Pro Optics were cheaper, and now offer a plastic-mount version for the seriously purse-pinched.

[corry]

thanks, that does help....so would these ext. tubes do more for me than my close up filters are?

[inkista]

For me, they were a better solution than close-up filters, but everybody's got different ways of working. There are folks who hold the opposite view. It's down to personal preference, I think.

[Austin_HXC]

Here's the newest one Canon just put out.

It's at a good price too!