Mucking around with close ups

[pnodrog]

Browsing in a camera shop while on holiday a few months ago I came across a Tamron 90mm 1:1 macro on display at a very low price. I have always thought I should have a macro lens so on the spur of the moment I bought it. The shop assistant went and got the box for it and packed it all up for me. As I was aware there were several versions of the Tamron when I got home I googled the description on the box to find it was the older version that had no VC. However when I looked at the lens I discovered it was the latest version with VC. Luckily the shop is in another city and I don't feel obliged to tell them they got their stock and possibly pricing mixed up. Ended up with a demo lens at approximately 40% of normal retail.

That was all a few months ago and have only just got around to having a play with it. At this stage just close ups rather than true macro. Happy enough that I have dragged out my now seldom used flash to try and find some smaller live subjects to test it on.

[ST1]

Good find and good images too Paul, well done


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[billtils]

The Tamron was my first macro lens and for what I guess you paid for it is great value for money. Enjoy!

[DanK]

Nicely done.


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[rpcrowe]

The Tamron for Canon EF mount was my first Macro lens. I used it for many years until the diaphragm just quit on me. It wouldn't stop down. However, I am quite happy with the use I made of this lens in comparison with the very low used price I paid for it.

I now have a macro lens for my Sony mirrorless gear but, since the close up capability of my 28-75mm Tamron lens is so good, I seldom break out the macro lens.

[pnodrog]

Good find and good images too Paul, well done


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Thanks Peter. More or less test images but I was happy. I suppose I will keep a sharper eye out for macro opportunities than I would have in the past. Come to think of it most new lenses I have procured in the past have added a new dimension to my photography.

[pnodrog]

The Tamron was my first macro lens and for what I guess you paid for it is great value for money. Enjoy!

Yes I am very pleased with my find. Had been keeping an eye out for a bargain macro for sometime. Did not expect to find it while browsing in a camera shop. At the time I did not expect it to turn out to be quite the bargain it was.

[pnodrog]

Nicely done.


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Thanks Dan. I will try not to get too devoted to macro. There seems to be an overwhelming amount of opportunities.

[pnodrog]

The Tamron for Canon EF mount was my first Macro lens. I used it for many years until the diaphragm just quit on me. It wouldn't stop down. However, I am quite happy with the use I made of this lens in comparison with the very low used price I paid for it.

I now have a macro lens for my Sony mirrorless gear but, since the close up capability of my 28-75mm Tamron lens is so good, I seldom break out the macro lens.

Once I decided to look out for a macro I did a bit of reading about them and the conclusion seemed to be the macro lenses from all the main manufacturers performed reasonably well. Some probably have better build quality but optically little difference. I had decided that 90mm was the shortest focal length I would consider as I wanted have at least a little bit of working distance.

Like you I had several lenses that get to 1:4 or a little better and there was no urgency in getting a macro. However it gets closer and seems to be a little sharper than the other lenses once close.

[DanK]

The other advantage of macro lenses is that they are close to flat-field, which matters much more when the subject is only centimeters away.

I too have read that most brand-name macro lenses are very sharp.

Working distance is not the only factor affected by focal length. Another is background blur (not DOF): the longer the FL, the more blurred the background. A third is weight and balance, which can be an issue in field macro, especially for us older folks. For FF and APS-C, I decided that something in the 90-105 mm range was the optimal compromise for me. I settled on a 100mm Canon.

This has me stumped for MFT, as I am still thinking about switching to an OM-1 for the size and weight. Olympus has a supposedly excellent 60mm macro which provides even narrower AOV than 100mm on a full-frame, so background blur should be slightly better. However, because of the shorter FL, the minimum focusing distance (which is the distance needed for 1:1 magnification) is much shorter, 19mm vs. 30mm.

One additional issue is how much VC, or IS, or whatever you want to call it, matters. Canon's position is that traditional in-lens IS doesn't much matter at macro distances because displacement of the sensor is more of an issue than rotation. Years ago, they introduced a "hybrid IS" in some of their macro lenses that also compensates for vertical and horizontal displacement. I have that in my 100mm, and my informal tests indicate that it gives me a few extra stops shooting handheld. I have no idea how this calculation is affected by IBIS systems, some of which have 5 types of correction.