Any suggestions for a canon macro lens?

thedudenes

Im looking to buy a new macro lens for my canon eos 450D.
I need something in the price range of up to $500.Any suggestions?

Answer
Check out the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro ($455)
or the Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 macro ($240)
or the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 macro ($400)

http://adorama.com or http://bhphotovideo.com

I have the 100mm it's a great lens

I am looking for a macro lens for my Canon Rebel XS?

Audrey

Not a zoom macro. Just macro lens. I do most of my online shopping on Amazon

Answer
Budget options:

Canon EF f2.5 macro (half full size on sensor, sensor crop will compensate to some degree when printing enlargements)

Sigma 50mm f2.8 DG macro (very decent lens at good price, much more recent construction style than Canon 50mm)

The sigma has the advantage of being full size reproduction, but you would be very very close to the subject.

The most natural choice for an APS-C canon is the Canon EF-s 60mm USM, more costly than the first two, but internal focusing (handy when working very close to subject) with far less hunting. Another full size repro lens this is right in the hotspot to double as an excellent protrait lens as well.
Unlike the first two options this lens is for cropped sensor cameras only. It would not work on a full frame film or full frame digital EOS.

I personally use the Sigma 70mm EX DG, which is an incredibly sharp lens, outperforming the Canon 100mm's in some tests. More costly again though.

Canon, Sigma and Tamron all do macro optics in the 90-105 range, but these would be too compressed for conventional macro work on an APS-C type body such as yours. The working distance and resultant persepective would be all wrong.

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Can a 100mm macro lens be used for landscape and family portraits?

best canon lens macro image

fiber

I'm thinking of buying a 100mm Canon macro lens. But I also need a lens to take some family photos of 50 or so people (either wide angle or from far away). Can I use the same 100mm macro lens for both? Any pros/cons?

Answer
A 100mm macro lens on any Canon dSLR with an APS-C format sensor (any non-professional Canon digital SLR let's say) will have a crop factor of 1.6x. That means that a 100mm lens on a Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel (just a random example) would actually be equivalent to a 160mm lens. In general, that focal length isn't going to be very useful for wide landscape photography or photos of large groups, but it would likely take very nice portraits of 1-3 people. That focal length is often considered part of the nice ranges of portrait lenses (around 85mm-180mm).

In a word though - "Nah" - that's not a good lens for both applications that you're interested in. Even at a straight 100mm you probably won't find an experienced photographer who will bless anything over, say, 35mm on the high end (no crop factor) for landscape/large group photos. On an APC-S sensor that would be about 17mm-18mm, which is quite common on zoom lenses now.

What happens if I do the "reverse prime" technique on an already macro-dedicated lens?

I have a 100mm Canon macro lens, and I was wondering what would happen if I did this technique on the lens. Would it reverse the macro back to a non-magnified view? I know that a lot of people use this technique to turn a normal lens into a makeshift macro lens, so I was wondering. I have seen some amazingly good quality macro images taken with a regular lens reversed, so if this would work on a macro lens would the quality be even better?

Answer
It won't make your macro lens do anything it doesn't already do.

The only issue is where the lens will focus. Other than that, it is just like using any other lens for the purpose. Most reverse-prime work is done with wide angle or standard lenses, not telephotos.

You could put a reversed prime on the end of the macro... that will work. I've done 28mm and 50mm on 105mm, but the focus point is right up against the object with a 28mm. Makes lighting a challenge.

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