Can someone help me with a lens

M-J

M-J

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Hi again Guys!

Well it has been a very long time since I last posted here, please forgive me, but Ive been having a baby and now it is time to get back to the teddy bear business.

Anyway I have a canon 400d slr camera and I use it (badly) to photograph the bears I design and make. I suppose I take portrait photos? I do however need to start taking close ups of my bear features. Anyway I have been told that a CANON 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM EF LENS would produce better results...............As I am clueless what advice could you give me and do you think that this lens is the right way to go

Thank you in advance for any advice you can give
lots of love
Melanie Jayne
 
Hi,
First of all congrats on the baby! You should post some photos up :p

I have recently purchased a macro lens for my 400D (Tokina 100mm f2.8) and love it. I have heard that you can't really go wrong with any of the macro lens really so that Canon one should be pretty good.

Here's a review of the canon lens, it comes highly recommended.

http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/canon_100_28/index.htm
 
It depends:
- A) how close you want to get
there are Canon/Sigma/Tamron lenses that have macro functions.
they range from 50mm to 150mm. Basically the larger the number the nearer you get.

also some "normal" lenses have macro settings (meaning you get quite close)

- B) how much you want to spend
The cheapest option is not a lens, but a closeup filter. It just screws on the front of your existing lens. About £10-£20. Try Jessops..

Dedicated macro Canon lenses will be more expensive than Sigma and Tamron
 
michaelho said:
Hi,

Here's a review of the canon lens, it comes highly recommended.
Click to expand...

I agree it's a good lens, but my questions are intended to find out if it's actually needed at all

And congrats on the baby by the way! Missed that last post :)
 
Hi MJ .. congrats on the baby :thumbs:

How close do you want to go?
Im not entirely sure whether a dedicated macro lens might be a bit of overkill and highlight 'too much' detail.
Do you want every stitch in a close-up to be on display?
A macro isnt the easiest of lenses to use either. You will probably need a tripod indoors especially at this time of year.

I could be wrong but I would have thought that a nifty fifty (50mm 1.8 or 50mm 1.4) might suit your needs.
I can crop in quite close with mine.

Your teddy bears are really beautiful, the pics are lovely too, some maybe could take a slight sharpen but still beautiful nonetheless.
 
That's more along the lines I was thinking of Inaglo

Any 'kit' sort of lens will focus pretty close these days, and a huge crop (akin to using a macro) for online use would negate the 'need' for a macro lens at all

So it's really down to what M-J wants to do with the images as to whether they need to be close enough & high enough quality for printing, which may mean using a new lens - or if it's for onscreen only, what she's already got will do the trick nicely and save more than the cost of a bear!
 
Thanks guys for your warm wishes.

I would like to photograph the detailing around the eyes, as I often add a of of detail here, I do photograph the bears indoors and I do use a tripod, but I am still struggling with actual photographs as I know they need to be better.

I am looking to spend around £300 on a lens

I have read somewhere that the macro lens can be used for portraits, but I would be interested to know what other lens recommendations you suggest.

love
MJ
 
you can indeed use a macro lens as a normal mid-range telephoto. The results may be a little too detailed sometimes for portrait work. They can reveal every single blemish, crease, fold, wrinkle and hair.

The tamron 90mm is probably just as good as the canon and other offerings for your needs. Cheaper too. As mentioned above though, there's not a lot between all the macro lenses.
 
Gandhi said:
The tamron 90mm is probably just as good as the canon and other offerings for your needs. Cheaper too. As mentioned above though, there's not a lot between all the macro lenses.
Click to expand...


Not sure I agree that you can have too much detail in a shot... however, I have the Tamron for the limited macro work I do and it's easily good enough for your use MJ

Why not see if Kerso (on this site) can find one for you, he saved me about £60 on a flash recently

:thumbs:
 
MJ... just to show show you what I mean about the 50mm F1.4
These were some shots I took last year when all I had was my 50mm.


I took the headshots ...

photobucket2696591copy.jpg




and then cropped in on the detail ....

Picture-269668-1.jpg


The headdress my model was wearing was a fine muslin fabric, see how the weave of the fabric appears open due to the amount of detail you can see.

I also agree with what Gandhi says above, the 100mm macro can be a little harsh for portraits.
 
What are you using your photos for - printed brochures, photos for the wall, or compressed and reduced in size for the web, where detail is lost in the resizing and jpg compression

There is a cashback offer on the Canon 100mm macro at the moment, and if Kerso can provide a UK invoice which Canon honour.
 
I tend to only use the photos for the web. One of my teddy artist friends recommended the macro she uses a 105mm on her camera, here is the link to her website Jenny and her photos are the kind of results I would like to achieve with my own photographs of my own bears. I do not know if this helps with the advice you can give me.

thanks again
love
Mj
 
Thank you so much for your help by the way Inaglo your photos are fantastic, I love the fact that you can see every detail too great work there!

Diddydave I am using the standard lens that came with my camera 18mm-55mm and tend to use the AV settings I am not even sure that I am using the right settings either, but I do this so I can focus on the bear as the background is not important here.

W.Smith do you mean that I could soften the images in photoshop if I used a macro?

sorry to be a pain, I do have photography books, but even they confuse me

Thanks again for your help it is truly appreciated
lots of love
Melanie Jayne
 
MJ I suspect your standard lens is good enough if you're only wanting to publish to the web, here's why...

Lets say you shoot your chosen teddy at close to the lens' closest focus, but there's too much bear in the frame so you need to crop the image. Publishing to the web only needs to be at 72 dpi but your camera will be recording at 300 dpi, which is 4 times the quality you need and so you can crop massively and still have enough quality for the web

If you want to try this, just email me a normal fullsize jpeg straight out of your camera of a bear (or as close in a shot as you can even though it's not close enough) and I'll see how close in I can get it at full resolution for web use. Might well save you that £300! Up to you dear, but I never advocate spending money when you don't need to

DD
 
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