Macro lens advice, please (1 Viewer)

I want to get a proper macro lens for insect shots, and will have a budget of up to £600. I am looking at the Canon 100mm f2.6 USM or the Sigma 150mm but will gladly take any recommendations you have. The lens I eventually end up getting will be used with a Canon 7D and a Canon 40D.

Cheers
'VB'

Both are great macro lens. With Sigma you'll have a greater magnification. If you want to take pics with large dragonflies and butterflies, Canon will be OK. For smaller creatures I would go with Sigma.

I have the 100 mm 2.8 canon lens and love it, it is super sharp, I can't reccomend it highly enough. Although my technique on Macro still has a way to go

Ashley beolens said:

I have the 100 mm 2.8 canon lens and love it, it is super sharp, I can't reccomend it highly enough. Although my technique on Macro still has a way to go

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agreed on this one, had the canon for a couple of years and it is superbly sharp when you have your technique right (which does happen on occasion for me)

Cristian Mihai said:

Both are great macro lens. With Sigma you'll have a greater magnification. If you want to take pics with large dragonflies and butterflies, Canon will be OK. For smaller creatures I would go with Sigma.

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Both lenses give 1:1 images. At closest focusing distance (and therefore at the maximum 1:1 image size) the 150mm lens will be farther from the subject giving greater working distance, but it will not give you greater magnification.

Bill

Thanks for the replies so far.

I can vouch for the Canon f2.8 Macro. I use it with a Canon 40D and it produces good sharp images with a near silent autofocus. Also the focus is internal so no barrel zooming in and out.

I got to this lens the hard way after suffering a Sigma 100mm Macro that was just awful!

Seeing as you say you have £600, I wonder if you would be tempted to save a few more pounds for the L spec version? I would.

Vectis Birder said:

I want to get a proper macro lens for insect shots, and will have a budget of up to £600. I am looking at the Canon 100mm f2.6 USM or the Sigma 150mm but will gladly take any recommendations you have. The lens I eventually end up getting will be used with a Canon 7D and a Canon 40D.

Cheers
'VB'

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I think your choice should depend largely on the size of the insects you plan on photographing, and also on whether you are a tripod user. It seems many users here hate using a tripod for macro!

Personally, I swear by a tripod (a small & light CF Feisol, so not too heavy), and find that a longer focal length lens (Sigma 180, now no longer available) gives me sufficient working distance to shoot skittish subjects like dragonflies and butterflies without spooking them. I'm not saying it's not possible to get good shots of these large insects with a 100mm, but I do think you will need to rely more on your stalking skills than with a shorter macro. My back is also extremely grateful I have a longer lens, meaning that I don't need to go crawling on my hands and knees everytime I go after a shot!

Another consideration, that could affect your choice, is whether or not you will be carrying a second lens in addition to your macro (and perhaps mounted to another body too?) I usually also carry a 100-400zoom, especially if I'm going somewhere to shoot a particular species, and want to cover both near and further distances. There have been several occasions where I would have struggled to get the shot, even with the 180mm, without the additional mag of a 300/400 lens. Large Hawker dragonflies such as Hairy Dragonfly and Common Hawkers come to mind here. The Canon 300 f4 is also highly rated for semi-macro work, and if you already have something in this size then you might find you can more easily get by with just a 100mm.

I won't recommend a particular lens, as all of the ones mentioned so far are excellent, as are the many others by Tamron, Sigma etc, but is is worth mentioning that Sigma have an OS version of the 150 macro on the way. It is currently only available on pre-order from Park Cameras for £715, yet most other dealers that are listing it have it for nearer £1000. I will say though, that if my 180 was lost or stolen, then either that or the current 150 macro would be my choice for replacement.

Hope this helps a little,

Steve

Watts said:

Both lenses give 1:1 images. At closest focusing distance (and therefore at the maximum 1:1 image size) the 150mm lens will be farther from the subject giving greater working distance, but it will not give you greater magnification.

Bill

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Bill, I'm not disagreeing with you here, however, this might be of interest.

My Sigma 180 gives 1:1 magnification at the minimum focus distance of 46cm according to the published specs. I'm not sure if this refers to the distance from the front lens element or the sensor (I remember reading somewhere that it could mean the later, perhaps someone can clarify this?). If it is the latter then on my particular copy I can focus down to around 42cm (and only 22cm if measured from subject to the front element). This means that on some samples of the lens, perhaps all? you can actually get slightly larger magnification than is indicated by the specs. I assume that the same is also true of the 150 lens?

Whichever is the case, 22cm is still plenty close enough for even the smallest butterflies. Adding an extension tube, or even a tube and teleconverter together, would yield even closer working distance and more magnification.

I would be interested to hear how much stalking you need to do with a 100mm compared with a 150/180mm. I suppose some of this difference is partly compensated for by using a body with a higher pixel density like the 7D, allowing you to crop more heavily, thus achieving greater 'effective mag'.

Steve

The Canon 100/2.8 macro (non IS) has a MFD of 12" and a MWD of 6" whereas the Sigma 150 has MFD of 15" and a MWD of 7.6". This means to get a true macro shot (1:1) you gain just 1.6" with the Sigma.
If shooting true macro It is up to the individual as to whether or not the 1.6" gain is worth the 50% increase (and possibly slower AF) in weight that the Sigma gives you.

edit MFD = Minimum focus distance MWD = Minimum working distance (from the end of the lens) These distances are without the hood.

Magnification levels will - as said by others - be the same for all the current leading brand macro prime lenses - the only exceptions I know of are the canon 50mm macro which only achieves half macro without adding a special adaptor and the MPE which "zooms" from 1:1 to 5:1.


Of all the lenses there isn't an optically poor choice - they are all fantastically sharp and even side by side testing will only show differences between the sameples themselves rather than real differences in the optical formula.

What differs is the features each lens offers you:

Focal length: the longer the focal length the more distance between yourself and the subject when focusing at the closest focusing point on the lens (ie at 1:1). Furthermore the increased focal length will render background areas in even greater levels of blur - At the extremes I've known people to use a 180mm macro with a 2*TC for significant blur and to use a 10-20mm lens with extension tubes for a far more detailed background area (it is still well blurred but shapes are more easily defined)

Focusing setup - both the 100mm and the 150mm you mention have USM/HSM focusing so they have quiet motors and all the time manual focusing. The Canon 100mm does have the edge on focusing speed - though all macro lenses tend to have slower AF systems than regular lenses.
The 150mm has a decent speed - its not lightning fast by any means, but it works well enough for most cases.

Hood - the 150mm is long enough to use the hood whilst doing macro work without much trouble (a great thing as the hood affords protection from leaves/twigs).

Teleconverter comaptability: the sigma 150mm will fit sigma brand teleconverters - however as far as I know only the kenko teleconverters will fit the canon 100mm macro. Teleconverters are a good consideration as they will increase max magnification without affecting focusing distances (a 1.4 gives 1.4:1 and is a teleconverter I often used with my macro lenses for a little more magnification - a 2*TC gives 2:1, but is harder to use and image quality takes a more noticable hit.)

picking up on a point made by steveclifton i have to say that with butterfly and dragonfly pictures taken this summer all my keepers (at least the vast majority) were taken with the 100-400 L

Can't really comment on the canon lens but have seen some cracking piccies with it. I use the Siggy 150mm and love it, I have dedicated a Canon 40D body to it too. Love mine and would replace it with the same if need be. I also use mine hand held for the vast majority of the time, but on the occasions where I use a TC and Tubes (both Jessops own) then it is tripod mounted.

Great info and some things to think about. Thanks so far everyone!

Steve - I have a 400mm f5.6 and a 70-200mm f4, both of which I have used for dragonfly photos back in the summer, but I need to get some extension tubes because the minimum focussing distance of the 400mm is 12ft. The results weren't bad, though.

I think it's a decision between the Canon 100mm and the Sigma 150mm.

One thing that should be considered 'VB' is that with a Canon macro lens and the 7D, the Camera has a special AI Servo mode which doubles the normal Servo sampling rate if shooting at macro distances - apparently this only works with a Canon Macro lens.
Although I am not a big macro shooter myself I certainly had a bigger hit rate this year with the Canon 100 macro and the 7D than I ever got with the 40D.

BTW I also find the 70-200/4 a nice lens for Butterflies and the like.

Thanks Roy.

One more question. Can someone please tell me what

A focusing limiter which limits the magnification to 0.25x greatly assists macro photography

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actually means. I am sure it's probably something totally obvious, the meaning of which I am missing! It is in the description of the Canon 100mm macro on Warehouse Express.

Cheers

Andrew said:

Seeing as you say you have £600, I wonder if you would be tempted to save a few more pounds for the L spec version? I would.

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Not many more pounds at the moment as Warehouse Express, for instance, are doing it at £678 with a £75 cash-back from Canon until the end of January: http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-canon-ef-100mm-f-2-8l-macro-is-usm-lens/p1033229

I bought the Sigma 150mm earlier this year and am very impressed with it, a big thumbs up from me. There are quite few insect macros in my gallery taken with this lens if it helps. I thought the price was pretty good too.

Vectis Birder said:

One more question. Can someone please tell me what



actually means. I am sure it's probably something totally obvious, the meaning of which I am missing! It is in the description of the Canon 100mm macro on Warehouse Express.

Cheers

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The focus limiter switch locks the lenses focusing range of the lens. On macro lenses this typically means that you can lock the lens to either only allow focusing between infinity and close up distances - or between close up distances and the lenses full closest focusing distance.
This provides faster AF because it means that the lens won't hunt through its entire focusing range - you don't need it to go through the full, finetuned, closest focusing distances if you are working with larger and further off subjects - similarly if you're doing macro shots you don't need it to focus all the way out to infinity.