Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: jaker on March 04, 2011, 06:12:52 am

Title: macro lenses
Post by: jaker on March 04, 2011, 06:12:52 am
I use a Canon Ids mk3 , considering buying a macro lens for occasional use in garden photography, welcome views on which to buy, are Sigma lenses any good is it best to bite the bullet and go for Canon?


JAMES KERR ABIPP
photography - finalist international garden photographer of the year 2011

www.jameskerr.co.uk

Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: NigelC on March 04, 2011, 07:09:13 am
I use a Canon Ids mk3 , considering buying a macro lens for occasional use in garden photography, welcome views on which to buy, are Sigma lenses any good is it best to bite the bullet and go for Canon?


JAMES KERR ABIPP
photography - finalist international garden photographer of the year 2011

www.jameskerr.co.uk


Have no experience of recent Sigma lenses but original Tamron 90/2.5 was awsome - modern incarnation not so nice. I now have Canon 100L IS macro, which is expensive, but is much more usable because of IS. It is also a very nice portrait lens because of the bokeh, so cost offset by versatility.
Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: jaker on March 04, 2011, 12:53:29 pm
I am off to  Focus - Birmingham NEC UK  show on Monday - will try them out and come back with my thoughts  I think alonger focal length either 150 or 180 look interesting.

Jaker


JAMES KERR ABIPP
photography - finalist international garden photographer of the year 2011

www.jameskerr.co.uk

Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: Semillon on March 04, 2011, 05:35:10 pm
Check out the Canon 100mm Macro f/2.8 USM, almost matches the L version for image quality at a very affordable price.
Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: PeterAit on March 04, 2011, 08:32:06 pm
The Tamron 180mm macro is lovely, it's sort of bulky but I love the extra shooting distance it gives me.
Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: gsman on April 10, 2011, 11:48:43 pm
my wife uses the canon 65 1-5x macro and it is awesome for closeups! it gets much more use than her 100 f2.8 canon.
Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: DaveCurtis on April 11, 2011, 02:25:18 am
Another option if you don't need auto focus is the Zeiss 100mm f2 ZE. It's only 1:2 magnification. It is an amazing lens, not cheap though.

Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: dlavay on April 14, 2011, 03:54:44 pm
I use a a 100mm f/2 Makro-Planar on a Canon 1Ds III.  I concur with Diglloyd describing this glass as the "King of bokeh! Corner-to-corner sharpness, world class." It has the sharpness, build quality, color rendition and background blur of the Canon 200mm f2.0 L IS in the package of a short range macro telephoto that is also excellent for landscapes and portraiture. I have absolutely no regrets regarding the purchase of this lens.
Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: stever on April 14, 2011, 11:24:23 pm
i do not have experience with the Zeiss, but have no doubts that it is a superb (probably the best) close focusing 100mm full format lens

i have a fair amount of experience with the 100 macro and 100 IS.  both of these lenses have outstanding corner-corner resolution (the IS better at large apertures not relevant to macro), 1:1 magnification, and most importantly internal focusing.  macro photography without internal focusing can be extremely tedious as a change of focus can result in a significant change in framing and vice versa

autofocus and IS are not important for most macro (although the 100IS can be pretty impressive hand-held in good light) but make the Canon lenses useful for a much wider variety situations in addition to macro
Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: gsman on April 17, 2011, 09:02:04 pm
i have the 65 1-5 macro.
allows you to shoot things the others cant even see.
use it way more than the 100 or 180 canons.
look into it
Title: Re: macro lenses
Post by: bobtowery on April 18, 2011, 04:38:15 pm
One vote for the 180mm f/3.5. Although I have not used the new 100mm, several friends with it, seeing my images, remark that they wish they had gone for the 180. It's also a beauty of a telephoto.

I also do plenty of handheld macro work, when it is more convenient. The combination of this heavy lens and a pro body is a pretty stable platform.

Here is a link to the Macro category on my blog:

http://bobtowery.typepad.com/bob_towery/macro/ (http://bobtowery.typepad.com/bob_towery/macro/)

Nearly all these were taken with the 180mm. Fair warning, mostly flower images, so if those aren't your thing, skip it.

Good luck with whichever lens you choose!

Bob.