Macro Lens

[Brenner]

October 17, 2010 at 10:38 am

I have a Canon 550D, Want to get a Macro lens for taking photo of insects. Can you tell me what I need to do this??

Thank you
Brendan

[paul]

October 17, 2010 at 11:52 am

The Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro is great for these type of shots

[tsergairl]

October 17, 2010 at 1:40 pm

hi Brendan,

there is a lot of ways to take macro pics,
Canon 100mm /2.8 is a fantastic lens but cost about 900 euro :-)

what type of lens do u have, maybe for the start is to buy some macro rings or macro bellows ?? the prices are much cheaper than lenses :-)

Chris

[Brenner]

October 17, 2010 at 3:48 pm

Thanks Paul great web site lot of info.

Chris I have 2 lens canon zoon lens EF 75-300mm usm and canon efs 18-55mm

Brendan

[Mikka]

October 17, 2010 at 7:14 pm

Hi Brendan,

I can highly recommend the Canon 100mm f2.8 USM Macro lens, I use it quite a lot. It should cost about €500 – €600 new.
If you have a lot of spare cash then you might opt for the newer 100mm f2.8 L IS USM Macro lens though this will be nearer the €900 – €1100 mark.
I started dabbling in Macro with the Canon 60mm Macro lens but soon discovered I needed a longer focal length for the more nervous subjects though this is also a fantastic lens for the money €400 – €500 new.
Prices go up a lot higher for the Canon 180mm L Macro or the MP-E65, depends how much into macro you wish to get.

A lot of the shots on My Web Gallery were taken with both the 60mm and 100mm lens……./Mikka

[The Fine Print]

October 17, 2010 at 9:37 pm

Depending how small those insects are, you may need a macro lens AND (a stack of) extension tubes; or a macro bellows.
Most macro lenses only do 1:1.
If you’re REALLY serious, you want either a 20mm Olympus micro-lens system on a repro stand, or a stereo-dissector with fibre-optic light source and camera tube.
Alternatives to forking out a lot of money for a macro lens or micro system inlude these two options:
1) Just extension tubes on a 50mm, (or other) lens: lower your max and min focussing distance; maintain all other lens functions (unlike most macro bellows). Excellent pic quality. a good one is e.g. the Canon EF 25II tube, but the Kenko ones are the same price or cheaper, just as good and you get more options (set of three vs one).
2) If you want to travel light, e.g. a +4 diopter lens (there are cheap ones and there are good ones out there; they’re NOT all the same; I have an older Fuji Apochromat screw-in, which works rather well on my 105mm/f2.5 50mm/1.8 prime lenses and 55mm micro) or the Canon 500D close-up lens would do it as well to a degree, but this won’t do it for anything smaller than, say, a bumble bee;

As a starting parameter use f22 for decent DOF and off camera flash for all of these methods.

I started off with a stack of extension tubes on an old 50mm prime lens and got great shots of ants….