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Best budget macro lens?


Admonition

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My wife has recently gotten into photography as a hobby after I bought her a camera for her birthday a few months ago. Being relatively new, she only has two lenses at the moment. She has a Cannon T3i camera and has been using a 40mm pancake lense to take pictures of my corals. After some research she's told me that to get the best results in pictures of my corals, she needs a "macro lens".

 

So, I'm turning to you fine folks for some help. What would be a great "macro lens" for her camera that would really get close up details of my corals? The budget would be around $300 tops.

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You will get a lot of different responses here, but if you go to the photography forum again and look at my post,I do not use macro lenses, i do not own one. I just reverse my lens or use an extension tube for my images, the ring that allows you to reverse the lens is like 4 dollars, and a set of extension tubes like 130. But to get good close shot you will need a 50mm or more and the canon 60mm is the closest thing, it cost like 350, used or refurb can be found even cheaper.

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I found a full manual macro lens at an estate sale for 10 bucks. Its a heavy lens, but far more compact than newer lenses since there are no motors or electronics. It had the CY mount. I can't remember the brand. CY doesn't fit my Nikon, so I bought an adapter for about 10 bucks and the lens works with my camera now. Only issue is that I can't focus at infinity, but who cares if I'm taking macro shots?

 

You can find similar lenses on Ebay for about the same price. Yeah, the lenses are old, but they work very well and help you get better at taking photos. You will appreciate auto-focus, that's for sure.

 

I also found a used 50mm 1.4 Nikon lens on Ebay and got that for under 100 bucks. It is also manual, but I love that lens. The bokeh is so beautiful. You can find 3rd party 50mm lenses on Ebay for the Canon for cheap as well.

 

I know that 4x5 on here uses a 90mm Tamron macro which you can find on Ebay for about 200 bucks last time I checked. He takes such amazing photos with it.

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You can definitely get a decent one for $300. You might even snag a used Canon 100 f/2.8 macro for that price.

 

The Tamron 90mm f/2.8 is probably your best bet for finding one at that price. I always recommend buying lenses used as you'll skip the whole depreciation part of owning a lens. If you decide to sell it later on it will likely be worth almost exactly what you paid for it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm a little late to the party, but in case you're still looking I'll toss my 2 cents in. The 40mm f/2.8 is a very capable lens, however if you're looking for magnification (i.e. making a single zoa polyp fill the frame), then you'll need a macro lens. For that budget, I'd recommend the canon EF 100mm f/2.8. However, most coral subjects don't need that much magnification and the 40mm (or even the 18-55) would work fine. If you don't have a decent tripod and a copy of lightroom (or similar post processing "digital darkroom" software), I'd buy those first. A macro lens can be a very frustrating experience without a tripod. And post processing is simply a must to take good images to make them great.

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I wasn't happy with the results my 50mm or 18-135 gave me for close up work but I sure am with the Canon 60mm macro I bought recently.

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I wasn't happy with the results my 50mm or 18-135 gave me for close up work but I sure am with the Canon 60mm macro I bought recently.

 

I must say I have an older nikon 35-70 with macro function at the 35mm end that may as well not even be there its that worthless. My opinion on tank macro lenses is 100+ only just because I value working distance.

 

sigma makes a great 150mm macro used i think is a good deal.

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I wasn't happy with the results my 50mm or 18-135 gave me for close up work but I sure am with the Canon 60mm macro I bought recently.

The EF-S 60 is a great macro lens, and definitely recommend for someone getting into general macro photography. However I tend to shy away from recommending it for tank photography because of the short "minimum working distance". That is the distance from the end of the lens to your subject to get 1:1 magnification. When photographing tanks, you can only get as close as pressing your lens up against the glass. On a 60mm you'll be able to get 1:1 magnification on objects up to 3.5" away from the front glass of the aquarium, while on a 100mm you'll be able to almost double that, to 6" away.
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  • 4 weeks later...

I figure instead of making a new topic about almost the same thing, I'll just hop on this one.

 

Veng, what's your thoughts on the Tamron 70-300mm w/ Macro. I'm a complete noob when it comes to photography, so I appreciate all the advice.

Sorry, I wasn't subscribed to this thread, so I didn't see this post till just now. The Tamron 70-300 is an entry level telephoto lens. For the price, it's about what you'd expect. However, it's not a "true" macro lens. It's maximum magnification is only 0.25X assuming you've got a Rebel or other "crop" camera, that would means you'd only be able "zoom in on" something 4" wide to fill the frame and still be able to focus. On a true macro, i.e. 1:1 or 1.0X, you'd be able to fill the frame with an object as small as 1". If you're looking for a true macro lens, this isn't the right lens. If you're wanting something to give you more reach outdoors, then it's a decent entry level lens, though the Canon EF-S 55-250 STM is really good for the price as well, but also not a macro lens.
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CatfishSoupFTW

I agree witth the post before mine. If you want a macro lens, get a dedicated macro lens, rather than a lens that "supports" macro. Macro is just tossed around with some zoom lenses to imply that they have a decent minimal focal length, but for the most part you want to get nice and up close.

 

for 300 bucks, you may be able to find used 100mm canon macro lens. The non L series one. it is a bit of a tough budget. hmmm.... maybe some older fully manual lenses could be of a nice find.

 

canon does sell an insane macro lens... its basically a super macro lens. its insane, you can make the eye of a fly fill your frame lol. the canon canon mpe-65. they go for 1000 or so brand new, not too sure what the used market is. Totally out of your initial budget, and the set ups required to use this lens can be finicky. so maybe thats a bad idea as well since youre new to shooting.

 

going back to the 100 mm lens, this one

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/194451-USA/Canon_4657A006_100mm_f_2_8_USM_Macro.html

 

its a fairly good lens. not as good or as fast as its L series brother, but take a look at that one, read reviews, and check he used market.

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