Which macro?

yak.h'cir · 11 Aug 2007 at 06:15

Arkanoid said:
Whats the best price anyone's seen on this?

MPE-65 that is

You can get it for just under 400 pounds over here

Cookie-Monster · 11 Aug 2007 at 09:10

seen it for £499 from a reputable HK based company (their no taxes guarantee actually works)

I'm trying to decide between,

a) The canon 100mm macro - seems to be universally well liked.
b) the Sigma 150mm - again a popular lens about the same price

c) the canon 180mm L macro - a lot more pricey but is it that much better?

I'm looking to expand my lens's from the 24-105 that I have with a Macro lens and a decent zoom

the zoom has pretty much decided itself as the 100-400 but the macro is still up in the air.... any help from people that are A) better than me (thats almost anyone) and B) that own any of the above or have used them

gt_junkie · 11 Aug 2007 at 11:42

Cookie-Monster said:
I'm trying to decide between,

a) The canon 100mm macro - seems to be universally well liked.
b) the Sigma 150mm - again a popular lens about the same price

c) the canon 180mm L macro - a lot more pricey but is it that much better?

I'm looking to expand my lens's from the 24-105 that I have with a Macro lens and a decent zoom

I've used the 100mm and it's a great lens.

a) Not too bulky (compared to my own 60mm efs) and with a great action. Love the larger macro's since they have nice big focus rings! :cool:

If you want similar performance on a budget i've heard that the 90mm tamron macro is pretty much equal to the canon in build and image quality but far cheaper. Might be worth a look!

b) The 150mm sigma is what messiah khan uses - you can see his results in many of his posts. It looks like a lovely lens TBH.

c) I think the 180mm L may be a matter of spending money for the sake of it. I'm sure it is better - but is it worth the extra cash?

Incidentally, if you're after a zoom lens i had a sigma 170-500 on the MM recently which is now on its way to the bay. Feel free to get in touch if you're interested - my email's in trust.

gt

Gaffer · 12 Aug 2007 at 23:50

yak.h'cir said:
Good luck! And make sure to post pictures.

Bingo!

http://www.tug.com/stuff/wasp_1920x1200.jpg

Kathleen (That's "Mrs Gaffer" to you...), spotted the dozy wasp on a stainless steel handrail on the Millenium bridge in newcastle this weekend. It didn't want to fly away, it only walked away when I was too intrusive with my lens. Took loads and loads of pictures at around 1x. Hand-held, with the ISO cranked up to 1600ASA - no flash.

Not perfect. Could have used more light to get a smaller aperture for more depth of field. But good enough to use for wallpaper on my laptop this week.

I think I'm going to enjoy this macro stuff...

Andrew

yak.h'cir · 13 Aug 2007 at 01:09

I like that! It's a good angle and nice composition too. What aperture did you have that set to? It looks like it might have been a bit high which might be why the wasp is a bit soft.

SidewinderINC · 13 Aug 2007 at 08:59

not bad

stick it in Photoshop and up the contrast & saturation a bit to bring it a bit more to life.

Gaffer · 13 Aug 2007 at 10:25

yak.h'cir said:
I like that! It's a good angle and nice composition too. What aperture did you have that set to? It looks like it might have been a bit high which might be why the wasp is a bit soft.

Does "high" mean "low f-stop number" ?

It was shot in program, which gave me 1/200 at f5.0 I was shooting in ambient light (no batteries in the flash) at 7pm, with the camera pushed to 1600 ASA.

The composition does look good but that is more by accident than design. Of the 40 frames that I took, this was the one with the best focus on the largest amount of the subject. It is cropped and resized to fit my laptop screen.

Andrew