Which macro lens?

[Ronny]

Which Canon macro lens do you recommend on a 70D? I am looking into the 100mm is and the 180mm is.
I understand the 180 is better to keep distance for shooting animals and bugs

[chauncey]

I use the 180 and love it for 90% of my shooting, whether it be true macro or portraits. The minimum focusing distance of 18" is convenient for in-situ work. The resolution in stellar in all scenarios. I do not hesitate to add a 2X TC to the equation. It would be remiss of me not to link you to this free site for all things canon...http://photography-on-the.net/forum/index.php

[DanK]

I think you will find that people have different styles of shooting bugs and different preferences for equipment. (I don't know what other animals you would need a macro lens for.) You might find it helpful to see if there is any advice in the stickies on this macro site: http://www.dgrin.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23. If not, you could post the question there. The people who post there include some of the best (including "Lord V," Brian Valentine), and they freely give good advice. I'm guessing that apart from the MP-E 65, a specialty lens you should avoid when starting out, most will tell you that they use 100mm lenses on crop sensor cameras.

I shoot a lot of macro (check out my site), and I have never used anything longer than 100mm. Longer focal lengths obviously give you more reach, and they also provide more background blur (which is not the same as narrower DOF). However, they are heavy and expensive, and the longer focal length makes rotational motion more of a problem. When shooting bugs, I find that keeping the camera sufficiently steady is hard even with a 100mm lens, particularly when using a diffused flash held close to the front of the lens. Also, the longer the lens, the less additional magnification provided by any given length of extension.

If you want full-body shots of large bugs, like dragonflies, then the longer reach might be the way to go. If you want more magnification, I personally would stick with 100mm. My standard bug-hunting rig is a crop sensor camera, a 100mm macro lens with a 36mm extension tube, and a flash. That gets you magnification like the images below. However, it takes both practice and a high frustration tolerance to get this close.

The ideal would be to try both before you buy.

[Geoff F]

We really need to know more details about your intended subjects, Ronny.

For flowers or inanimate subjects where you can get really close, then 100 mm is fine. But expect to miss a lot of nervous insects which fly away as soon as you approach.

Most of my insect work is for identification purposes so I need to shoot every bug which comes my way to an acceptable identification standard. So I use a 180 mm lens which often has a 1.4x converter attached. But with more magnification there is bound to be slight quality loss.

This will give me a working distance of 12 ins if I'm lucky, but I find a lot of my shots have to be at 2 ft or more from the subject.

Even with placid moths, I have tried my 24-105 zoom at 100 mm and a working distance of 8 ins but I'm not happy with the results. However, a smaller lens, in particular my Tamron 24-70 is my favourite flower lens.

But with longer lenses you will be limited to tripod only use. This does take a bit of time to get the knack and when photographing live insects I found using a quick grip ball head made all the difference.

There are other makes of lens to consider. I am on my second Sigma 180 (after upgrading to the newer model) and Tamron now have a 180 mm lens which gets good reviews. Sigma also make a 150 mm lens which has been favoured by entomologists for a long time.

The new Sigma 180 is a F2.8 lens which means it would accept a 2x converter and also has stabilisation so hand held shots are just about possible. And this makes it a handy mid length telephoto lens for general use as well as macro.

[Melkus]

Not a Canon owner but I'm using the Tamron AF 90mm on my Sony580 and been happy with it.

[Ronny]

Chauncey,
Thank you for your answer an d I will look at the site. Still a question. Do you shoot out of your hand or do you use at least a monopod?

[Ronny]

Dank,
I nearly always shoots with the monopod attached to the body. And I will not change when using the body in the macro field.
But thank for your advice too.

[Ronny]

Geoff F
Thank for the detailed explanation. As I mentioned before I always use a monopod. Beside macro, I do photography for Realtors too and the lenses I use are the 10-22mm and the 24-105mm.
Being an older persoon and from the old school, I always think to stick to the same brand and I just want to buy a real macro lens.