What's a good macro lens for a canon EOS?

I can't speak specifically about the Canon lenses, but I was frustrated using a couple of cheaper macro lenses... so, out came the money, and the 105VR for my Nikon. It's a fantastically lovely lens and does everything I want it to do.

Admittedly I take pictures of rocks so, meh... but it does that very nicely.

How much of a difference? Well, for one, working distance is important. The more focal length for a true macro(1), in general, the further back from your subject you can be. This is important for two things: one, lighting, and two, not freaking out things you're photographing.

The second is that if one just wishes to cock around with macro, could well be better off with decent extension tubes & a lens to suit. Cheap 50mm lenses work well; I understand that to get best results on Canons you want to pay for decent extension tubes that'll allow the electrical connections to be made to the lens. That's a lot less flexible: by using extension tubes, your working distance can get quite short for large magnifications, and, you also lose infinity focus. I like my 105 cause it's also a good portrait lens, and often a great action lens too. Super cheap tubes are that, they're cheap. They work - but on Canons I think you have to trick the lens to get it to stop down to the right aperture, take it off, and do manual exposure.

DoF with macro lenses, at proper macro distances, is fkn tiny, so you want something that'll stop down to a pretty small aperture, f/45 for instance @ minimum focal distance. As you stop down, you lose sharpness due to diffraction, so cheaper lenses definitely tend to look more bum when stopped down.

(1) Gives you 1:1 at the sensor/film, i.e. something 50mm across is going to ~fill an entire frame on a full-frame DSLR or a 35mm film negative.

 

Quality is definitely remembered long after price, plus, macro photography is one of the demanding ends of the photography spectrum.

With the Tamron, someone here at work got one, then on-sold it after being a bit meh and borrowing my 105VR (they're on Nikon, too). That's the only knowledge I have.

IMHO, resale value of items also needs to be taken into consideration in the price factor, and Canon lenses do sell better (and for higher prices) than third-party lenses...

 

Yep, lens reversal is another method that works. On Canons I thought there needed to be a bit of trickery to get the aperture right. On Nikons you just use an older lens with an aperture ring. Also, you get greater magnification the shorter the focal length of the lens. I own a 28mm lens for just this purpose.

It has at least as many working distance problems as using tubes (you have very little distance between front of lens and subject when you use tubes or reverse a lens), without a good adapter you can end up with a load of dust on the sensor, too. But it definitely is cheap, esp. if you can find instructions on how to set the aperture on an electronic Canon lens then have that aperture stay once you remove the lens.

 

Awesome, that's handy to know... well, ok, not handy for me as I don't have a Canon, but that's a pretty neat trick. As I said, I keep a couple of aperture-ringed lenses around for my Nikon but I haven't done reversal stuff for macro for aaaages.

I might pull out my oldschool bellows though. They won't mount to my D70 (which is about to get converted to being an IR camera) but they apparently will mount to my D90...