Best macro lens?

[clarkeg]

First of all I don't want to get into a nikon vrs Canon debate but here is my story/question.

A guy in work has a nikon d90 but he doesn't know too much about it to be honest at he has only ever used auto all the time. He wants to have a go at macro photography and is convinced that Canon are the better than nikon at macro lenses.

He is obsessed that the lens has to have a 1.5 magnification. I have been looking around on the macro section and I do notice that a lot of the shots are from Canon gear, he is particularly interested in the extreme closeups of fly/bugs eyes, etc.

So what is everyones honest opinion, as a general rule with regards to macro are Canons macro lenses better than nikon macro lenses or is it pretty much the same?

Thanks
Clarke.

 

[gad-westy]

Not heard that before. It seems to me that both Canon and Nikon offer some crackers and there are also some very highly regarded third party lenses that of course work on both. I suppose Canon do offer their crazy 5:1 thing but that is pretty specialist stuff.

It's 1:1 reproduction that he is after, not even sure what 1.5 magnification could mean.

 

[clarkeg]

Not heard that before. It seems to me that both Canon and Nikon offer some crackers and there are also some very highly regarded third party lenses that of course work on both. I suppose Canon do offer their crazy 5:1 thing but that is pretty specialist stuff.

It's 1:1 reproduction that he is after, not even sure what 1.5 magnification could mean.

Yea he keeps going on that it has to have 1.5 magnification and I haven't been looking around to see what he is on about.

 

[squishy]

Tell him unless he's planning on dropping a grand on an MPE-65mm 1x-5x macro set-up, there aren't many macro lenses canon offer that aren't equalled, nearly equalled or marginally exceeded by a nikkor counterpart.


The MPe-65 is one of the reasons I went canon, because I am interested in extremely high mag, and there is simply no other way of achieving 1x-5x mag with one lens (without a bellows set-up).
It is possible to achieve and exceed 5:1 ratio without the MPe-65, with reversed lenses and bellows etc. , but the '65 is the most flexible way of doing it for in the field macro work, hence it's popularity with insect photographers.