I need some help picking a new lense.

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MadMailMan

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Hello all knowing Gurus.

Enough brown nosing. :D I need some help picking a new lense I want to do some close up photography. You know the water droplet about to fall off the leaf stuff. It'll be plakked onto my Canon 20d. Any suggestions?
 
Dang - I wish I could help :o . . . but have a look at any of the macro threads. ;)
 
In order of ascending expensiveness:

  1. A set of no-name extenstion tubes
    This go inbetween your current lens and your camera and let you focus closer. The more extension tubes you put between the lens, the less light gets through to the camera and you'll have to use higher ISO or shutter speeds.

    No-name brand ones don't have electronic contacts, so you won't be able to change aperture without fiddling around (setting aperture, holding down Depth-of-field preview button, removing lens, connecting extension tube, connecting lens)

    You can find a 3 piece set of them on eBay for about $10 including free shipping.

    The Canon ones seem to start at R800 for just one tube, and Kenko (with electronic contacts) being R2500 for a whole set. Personally I'd rather get a proper macro lens than these ones.

  2. A pair of close-up filters/dioptres
    These go on the front of your lens like other filters, and so will fit on any brand lens as long as it uses the same size filter thread (Ø52mm, Ø58mm etc). These act kind of like magnifying glasses, letting you focus at a closer distance. You can also stack them for increased magnification in exchange for reduced picture quality.

    The cheaper ones go for about $10 ea on eBay (including free shipping) though some are as low as $5. The big name brand ones (Canon, Nikon, B+W etc) go for a LOT more.

  3. Reversing a lens
    If you have two lenses, you can put the second one, on the front of the first one, back to front. I can't remember why this works, but apparently it does :P Check the macro thread bwana linked, I'm sure I saw someone doing it there. You can again, get a pre-made one online, and again, also in the $10 range.

  4. Using an old (pre EF) macro lens
    This is my preferred method :) Buy an old second hand macro lens that can't be used on current cameras without an adapter, for about R300~600 (excluding shipping, and VAT, and customs...) as well as the adaptor (another R300) and put them on your camera. If you can find the lens locally, or get one from family/friends, then I'd definitely recommend this route.

    Note: You CANNOT focus to infinity with this lens when you're using the adaptor. You won't be able to use it as a normal 50mm lens. Anything further than a meter or two will always be out of focus.

    The two things you lose compared to a modern lens (possible image quality aside) are 1. Autofocus (which IMHO you don't need on a macro lens, since you'll want to focus manually and precisely) and 2. Electronic aperture control. Instead of controlling your aperture using the dial on your camera, you turn the ring on the lens. This means you have to use stop-down metering. Unfortunately this means if you're going to shoot at f8 or f16, the viewfinder will be dark, unlike with a modern lens, that where the lens will stay at the widest aperture until you actually take the photo, so the viewfinder stays bright.

    You can see examples of the kind magnification you get with a Canon FD 50mm f3.5 macro lens with extension tubes on my EOS 350D on my blog.

    And some more photos I've taken with the lens (mostly w/o the extenstion tubes) on my flickR.

  5. Buy a proper dedicated macro lens
    The EF 50mm f/2.5 is about R2900. The best part is you can buy it locally at any good camera store, and don't have to worry about customs and patiently waiting for slooow free shipping from the East. You don't have to worry about changing the aperture dial to f/3.5 and then back down when you're focussing. You can also use it as a normal lens and take photos of people and such.

  6. Overkill (IMO) would be to buy the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x, which as it's name suggests, offers 5x bigger than life magnification, for about R10'500 :D

Edit:
There are also "bellows" which look like accordions are are adjustable extension tubes, and do the same thing. Also, if you're going to be playing around with macro photography, you might want to consider getting a tripod. It's not necessary, but you'll find yourself having to use your highest ISO a lot if you're going to hand holding your camera. A remote shutter release is also nice to have, but again, not necessary as you can just use your timer on your camera. I'm not sure if the 20D has mirror lock up, but lastly, that helps as well :)
 
Last edited:
swift412 said:
Also, if you're going to be playing around with macro photography, you might want to consider getting a tripod. It's not necessary, but you'll find yourself having to use your highest ISO a lot if you're going to hand holding your camera. A remote shutter release is also nice to have, but again, not necessary as you can just use your timer on your camera. I'm not sure if the 20D has mirror lock up, but lastly, that helps as well :)
Click to expand...
Erm, For macro, I very seldom use a tripod, I always use ISO 100, I never use mirror lockup, but then I do use flash :p

I'm with swift on the dedicated macro lens though: Sigma's macro lenses at SAcamera.

For drop photography, you will probably need the MPE-65 mentioned. I've found that with drops, 1:1 is a bit small. Here, a honeydew drop on an orchid taken with a Sigma 105 macro with 68mm of extension tubes (1.8:1) and cropped:

 
swift412 said:
[*]Reversing a lens
If you have two lenses, you can put the second one, on the front of the first one, back to front. I can't remember why this works, but apparently it does :P Check the macro thread bwana linked, I'm sure I saw someone doing it there. You can again, get a pre-made one online, and again, also in the $10 range.
Click to expand...
Dont check my link expecting anything else other than my crusade against the use of expired English. :)

Although - there are a few links about for another similar technique involving the reversal of a lens placed directly on the body. The 50mm f/1.8 is perfect for this as it sits inside the mount and doesnt slide around. http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php/photo/2929

I often use this technique because I always have my 50mm at hand and I'm really too cheap to buy a macro lens (bugs dont pay the bills :o).
 
I wasn't aware you can use a reversed lens mounted directly onto the body. I learnt something new today, thanks :D
 
And thanks for the advice swift412, BigAl-SA and bwana. I would like to get something maybe like a 50mm or 80mm prime with macro ability or maybe this.
 
bwana said:
lol - adapter? I jut hold it in place with an elastic band but you can easily DIY one - http://www.diyphotography.net/diy_reverse_macro_ring
Click to expand...

I just tried the reversed lense thing. Awe......some!!! :D

I didn't know what to photograph so I took a picture of the screen on my laptop.

This is a pic of the bw in bwana :D
13740

Reduced in size for MyBB
This is a full res pic that has been cropped to show the actual detail.
13741

You can actualls see the three lcds that make up each pixel.

By the way this laptop has the the 1920x1200 WSXGA screen. :cool:
 
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