Macro with canon 500D

[iRebel]

HI all,
i`m interested in macro photography. I remember from previous site "MacroJunkie" member (gallery) who took stunning photos of insects. I would like to do something similar with my Canon500D. So can anybody, who interested in same thing,give me advice about lenses and other stuff for that kind of photography.
Thank you!

[matt wilson]

You will get life size with Canons 100 mm 2.8 it's a super lens very well rated .Also doubles up as a good portrait lens.

100mm also gives you a greater working distance from your subject.Any self respecting insect will have cleared off if you go for a shorter focal length.

Though I personally have not been able to justify the cost ringflash would be handy.

Another cheaper lens is Tamrons 90mm macro that is also very highly rated.

[cosmicma]

another alternative ( or 2 ) is the sigma 105 f2.8 macro lens quite a few use this lens and get very good results but none of these lenses are going to give you closeups of a fly's eye ( or similar ) without extension tubes so keep that in mind if thats the type of photoraphy your thinking about

soo... really close macro work on a budget
bellows are a great way to go with a 50mm lens
any good quality 50mm manual lens a set of bellows and the relevant mount for your camera can be had for not a lot of money and can produce amazing results

doing macro work with existing kit presuming you have a 50mm and a telephoto lens of some description
invest in a reversing ring to attach the 50mm to the front of your telephoto lens and with a lot of fiddleing it's suprising what results can be had

on a more serious note i allready have a sigma 105 f2.8 macro lens and as good as they are i really wouldn't mind that fly's eye shot which really isn't acheavable with the lens on it's own so extension tubes is the way to go but these can be expensive for the hobbyist like myself so i was looking at the bellows option and i think thats the path i will take the reality is it's cheaper for the same results

[flake]

Most macro lenses will go to 1:1 as a maximum magnification, but will also allow focus to infinity, thus allowing you to photograph subjects which are larger than small insects, or to take a useable shot from further away.

As a Canon user you have the option of a 5:1 macro lens, but this will not allow infinity focus so it is much more difficult to use.

The easiest way to get a macro lens to 2:1 magnification is to use a 2x teleconverter, using extension tubes is impractical, as you need to add the same as the focal length to add one unit of magnification, in other words 100mm with a 100mm lens. Bellows used to be a method of moving the lens from the film/sensor plane, but there don't appear to be any which will allow the camera to communicate with the lens and as a result it is not possible to adjust the aperture from wide open, which is usually very large on a 50mm prime.

At these kinds of magnification light is at a premium, an indicated aperture of f/8 is a real aperture of f/16 at 1:1 but at 2:1 it becomes f/24 so a flash is a must. Because the point of focus focus becomes closer at higher magnification a fing flash is not a good choice, and you should consider a true macro flash where the flash heads have an adjustable angle to account for this.

Although the Sigma 105mm Macro is optically very good the extending focus is a major minus especially when using a macro flash, as the motor struggles to extend the lens with the extra weight. The Canon on the other hand is internally focussed and it's very fast to find it. If the cost of the two lenses was further apart I'd say that the Sigma was a good choice, but there's only about £70 between them, and that makes the Canon a no brainer.

One cheap way to acheive something like macro is to buy a set of close up filters which screw on your existing lenses and work quite well.

[iRebel]

Thank you for advice