A really good MACRO lens

Having seen some amazing close-ups of Flys' eyes and things, I'd just like to know what would be a suitable Macro lens to look for if I wish to emulate this. what amazes me is just how close is the lens to these flies (or does one need to train flies to a suitable level of obedience)?

At the moment I use my Pentax 55mm manual lens with a nest of 'close-up' lenses attched to it. I have one shot on my portfolio that shows the ability of this lens setup. (blue bubble).

The longer the focal length of a macro lens, the greater the distance between your lens and your subject at 1:1 magnification.

For static subjects, 35 or 50mm is fine.

For moving or dangerous subjects, 90/100mm lens minimum, 180/200mm is even better. The longer the lens, the more expensive it'll be.

Extension tubes/bellows will give superior results to closeup 'filters' when using a standard lens. Raynox being an exception.

Reverse mounting a 50mm lens to a camera body can give good results, as can stacking a reverse mounted 50mm lens onto the front of a longer (200mm) lens to give approx 4:1 magnification.

Good lighting can be a key factor in producing outstanding macro images. Generally you'll need plenty of light.

With all of the methods other than using a dedicated macro lens at a reasonable aperture (f16 or smaller) and with plenty of light, depth of field, or the lack of it, will be an issue.

Tamron make good macro lenses, as do Pentax. My preferred lenses are the SMCP-FA 100mm 1:2.8 Macro and the Sigma EX DG 180mm 1:3.5 lenses. Probably the most expensive macro lens is the SMCP-FA 200mm lens recently talked about. One sold on ebay recently for almost £2500.00.

I think most of those shots are with a 1:1 macro lens, plus a further extension tube or macro TC.

Alternatively you can reverse a 28mm lens for that sort of shot. Apparently the chap who got the bug-eyes cover photo on the recent Pentax User newsletter used a reversed 28mm lens. There was a discussion about his flickr stream here a few weeks ago.

So, care to explain the concept of reversing a lens please? Have been looking at some Macro lenses and realise i wont get much change from £600-700 for a Macro at 200mm.

To reverse a lens you need a reversing adapter. It's a male K-mount with a male filter thread on the front. Screw the adapter to the front of your lens, then fit it to the camera using the adapter's K-mount. EG: If you have a SMCP-M or A 50mm 1:1.7 lens, you'll need a 49mm reversing adapter.

To protect the lens's K mount, take an old push-on rear cap and cut out its centre.

You will of course have no automatic control of anything, it's all manual.

Stacking requires a dual male threaded adapter to suit the filter threads of your two chosen lenses. Mount the longer lens to the camera and reverse mount the shorter lens to the front of the longer lens using said adapter.

I'd suggest you look for a Pentax 100mm Macro lens or a Sigma/Tamron lens of a similar size. The Sigma 180mm is available from several sources for around £700 - 800 but it's a lot of cash to lay out if you are not going to have the patience for macro photography of bugs. You'll need more patience than lens, I can assure you.

You can buy an adapter cheaply that enables a lens to be fitted back-to-front. It screws into the filter thread and has K mount on the other side. The lens will focus very closely like that.

You'll need a lens with an aperture ring to properly use anything other than the smallest aperture. Use the camera in Av or M mode.

Manual extension tubes are cheap as well.

Cheers Chaps. Gonna get some extension tubes first and see how that goes, then as I 'develop', i may well go for the 100mm Macro lens option.

As always, excellent advice.

cheers

Those above have explained how to do this very well, if you're after why you do it, consider this:

In a handheld camera with a normal lens, we use a lens to make a small (~24mm across on a DSLR) picture of something which in reality is quite large (say a few meters across. The optics are designed this way around and optimised to make the image smaller in the most sensible possible way.

Now, consider macro photography. This time you want to make a picture of something which is actually very small, so much so that you may even want to make the image on the sensor larger than the object itself. For this reason, you turn the lens around so that the "back" element is still pointing at the smaller thing.

does that make sense?

The magnification is greater the shorter lens you use, so a 28mm lens on a reversing ring gives more magnification than a 50mm.

Not sure reversed lenses will give you the lens-to-subject distance you seem to be looking for?

Maybe someone more expert than I can comment.

I have the 100mm Pentax macro - lovely lens - but it does only really only give 4-6 inches working distance.

Mongoose, you have explained the process most eloquently. Thank you. I shall now go into experimentation mode, buy myself an old 28mm manual lens for a few quid along with the aforesaid accoutrements. Hopefully I can showcase my pictures soon.

JohnX, based on what you said I suppose really detailed shots of wildlife will not be possible unless i spend a shed load of cash on a big lens . so I think i shall start off small and still and work myself up toward living things.

I suggest a cheap bellows - plenty out there on ebay. Then pick up a cheap medium telephoto lens (the M 135 3.5 comes to mind) to get a resonable working distance (if you can find the Pentax 100mm bellows lens all the better - but I think they tend to go for rather more money, being relatively rare). Alternatively a shorter lens (such as a 28mm) on a bellows will give astonishing magnification but not much working distance. To work out the approximate maximum maginification just divide the maximum bellows length by the focal length of the lens

PS also watch out for the Cosina/Vivitar 100mm AF macro lenses on ebay. They are a bit plasticy but have a good reputation for sharpness. They are only 1:2 but came supplied with a matched closup lens which made them 1:1 - so make sure that is part of the deal. I've a feeling the cheap Pentax FA 100/3.5 was basically the same lens.

Oh and for range the Sigma 70-300 Apo Macro Super can do 1:2 at 300mm, and there is (or was) a special two element converter for that which takes it to 1:1. However at that length with no tripod mount on the lens keeping it steady even on a tripod can be a problem...