Macro lens?

Hi all,

Could you please help with my macro dilema? I just got my K20D and at the moment I want to do and buy everything but I can't... simple.

I don't know the ins and outs yet but I do LOVE macro photography and I would like a good lens that will keep my thirst away for a while.

I like to take pictures of flowers, textures, bits and bobs... not insects yet but eventually I will but I understand I'll probably need a new lens at that point in time.

So, any help is much appreciated. What else do you need to know?

Oh, budget would probably help... probably up to £500ish, but only because my birthday is coming up!!

Thank you in advance...

Well I know the feeling about wanting to do everything and everything I to have not long started in this highly addictive hobby.
Also I have found the whole buying of lenses and other equipment is a addictive habbit!!

Coming back to your question though because you are wanting to try a bit of everything why not get a sigma/tamron 70-300mm which gives you your wide/telephoto options but also a macro?
Also maby buy yourself a cheap manual focus macro lens if you want some more versatility in that department?

If you want to see the sort of macros the tamron 70-300 can do in a amateurs hands have a look at my gallery.
Or elsewhere around the site theres plenty of examples!

Welcome to the Pentax world

For £500ish you can get a proper new macro lens, it will eat up almost all your budget though but i will give you the best result.

For flowers and textures the focal length isn't really important, they won't be scared, run away or bite you. For insects you would want something around 100mm it will give you some space between you and the spider for example.

You have the choice out of the:
Sigma 105mm f/2.8
Tamron 90mm f/2.8
Pentax 100mm f/2.8
Non of the lenses will disappoint you, they are all superb and very sharp.
They do however handle and feel different so try them out and see what you like.

I've the Pentax since it was the lightest of the 3 and it's the only one with quickshifts, which I've found very handy while shooting but it doesn't have a focus limiter like the other two.

Thank you both of you. I looked at the Tamron 70-300 in Park Cameras at the weekend and I didn't really like the feel of it. Does that make sense? I'm sure it does? It just didn't feel right FOR ME. My bf liked it though and would like to get it but I'm just not 100% sold on it...

I'm thinking I might like a fixed macro lens instead of a zoom/macro combi. Hmmm... decisions, decisions...

If I take my camera with me, do they generally let you have a go with them or is that a strict no-no?

Forget the zooms, they are not 1:1 macro lenses, more close focus 1:2.
Any of the lenses Stefan has listed would be a good choice, to be honest there is no such thing as a bad macro lens.

Most shops will let you try a lens on your camera.

The Elicar manual focus 90mm macro, if you can find one, is unusual in that it goes larger than life size, to 1.25:1 if I remember correctly.

The other unusual but excellent one is the Vivitar 50mm f2.8, an excellent if somewhat rare lens. That goes to 1:1

The current Pentax macro lenses are the D-FA 50 and 100mm but it's worth looking out for the older, but equally excellent F and FA series 100mm 1:2.8 macro lenses.

They are heavier and don't have the benefit of quick-shift manual focussing, but they do produce stunning results and may be a bit cheaper.

All of these lenses are AF lenses but You'll probably find, like most of us here that you'll only use them as MF lenses. So you could look for an older/cheaper still MF 100mm macro lens.

I second Mike's advice, don't consider a zoom macro lens as a permanent solution. If you really get hooked on macro, you'll soon want a proper macro lens and you'd have wasted your money on the zoom.

Thank you all for your input so far. I will take the info away and decipher it all. I am starting to understand some of what you are saying after reading a book from the library! I feel like I'm back at school again. It's all very exciting though.

Macro here I come!

I'm no expert but have you considered buying a flash with some of that budget? It should be possible to pick up an MF macro such as the Tamron 90mm adaptall-2 with a PK/A mount (together or purchased seperately) for £100-£150. Also invest in a decent flash, have a look on this site for recommendations but you have a choice of models under £200.

If you decide that MF is not good then you could always sell it on and 'upgrade' to an AF model at a later date.

I sent you a PM re a SIGMA 50MM F2.8 EX DG MACRO LENS if you are interested.

The DA 35mm is not too bad.

I just popped this off in the garden, it's hand held at 1/45th second f8 so it's not perfect, should have been stopped down to f16 or f22 but as you can see the lens is worth consideration at least.

I find it a very capable GP lens as well.

Wow, thank you for that! What a great shot! How close did you have to be to take that? Sorry, I'm still not sure about all the lingo, what was the exact lens you used?

Thank you again.

I will get back to you jon.dc if that's okay?

It was the Pentax DA 35mm f2.8 Macro. I guess the ants were about 2 inches from the lens front element.

Do not try this with a scorpion!

Here is some advice on macro lenses I posted in another thread, hopefully it will help you make the right choice to suit your requirements;

"A macro lens achieves a ration of 1:1, meaning the image on the film or sensor is the same size as the object being photographed.

Another important distinction is that lenses designed for macro are usually at their sharpest at macro focus distances and are not quite as sharp at other focus distances.

However in recent years, the term macro has been used in marketing material to mean “being able to focus on a subject close enough so that when a regular 6×4inch print is made, the image is life-size or larger. This requires a magnification ratio of only approximately 1:4, more easily attainable by lens makers.

A few zooms lenses provide a macro option, but they generally do
not allow a 1:1 magnification

The focal length is very important. Macro lenses range from 50mm to 200mm; even though both a 50 Macro and a 180 Macro reach the same magnification (1:1), the longer lens gives a much more out-of-focus background and more working distance. When you look at the specifications of a macro lens, you have to pay attention both to the focusing distance and the working distance. The focusing distance is the shortest distance where you can focus: but this is not the actual distance between you and the subject, it is just the distance between the focus plane (the sensor) and the subject.

In macro photography, it is very important to know the working distance - that is the distance between the front element of the lens and the subject. For example, with a 50mm Macro you have a minimum focussing distance of 19 centimeters, but actually the distance between the front element and the subject is just 7 centimeters, and if you mount the lens hood, this distance is further reduced to 4-5 centimeters. As you can imagine, it is not easy to get close to a butterfly or another animal: this is one of the reasons to prefer a long lens to a short lens for macro photo.

The following table list the focussing distance and the working distance for the most common macro focal lengths.

Focal Length Focusing distance at 1:1 Working distance at 1:1 (without hood)
50mm 19.0 centimeters 7.0 centimeters
60mm 22.0 centimeters 9.1 centimeters
70mm 25.7 centimeters 10.7 centimeters
90mm 29.0 centimeters 12.0 centimeters
100mm 31.0 centimeters 14.0 centimeters
150mm 38.0 centimeters 18.8 centimeters
180mm 46.0 centimeters 23.8 centimeters
200mm 50.0 centimeters 25.2 centimeters

A third advantage of long lenses is the tripod collar: when the lens is mounted on the tripod, the collar offers a fourth axis of movement, it is an huge help, in particular for vertical photos.

The majority of macro lenses have an aperture between f/2.8 and f/4. The widest aperture does not have much importance in a macro lens, since at these magnifications you will often stop down at least to f/8 to get a good depth of field."


Here is an example of a 50mm macro on a 1:1 ratio at about 7.5cm from the front of the lens.

Do the the colours look a bit over saturated?



Edit - colour saturation question

You've got £500 to spend, so I would advise getting a dedicated macro like the very well reviewed Tamron 90mm. But on a much more modest budget, you can do a lot with extension tubes. The manual ones can be bought for small change but unfortunately the viewfinder goes very dark when you stop down (which must be done manually via the aperture ring):

Extension tube plus Pentax 50mm:


Extension tube plus Sigma MiniwideII 24mm: