Getting back into the game

Messages
213
Name
Simon
Edit My Images
No
Hello,

I've owned several Canon's over the years and loved the brand. I've just picked up a decent low actuation 7D and wanted to source some lenses.

What lens would you recommend that is tack sharp for photographing watches? Something with a great minimum focusing distance?

I'll be picking up a nifty fifty for sure, just because.
 
Hello,

I've owned several Canon's over the years and loved the brand. I've just picked up a decent low actuation 7D and wanted to source some lenses.

What lens would you recommend that is tack sharp for photographing watches? Something with a great minimum focusing distance?

I'll be picking up a nifty fifty for sure, just because.
Canon 100mm 2.8 is macro. Fab lens.
 
Hello,

I've owned several Canon's over the years and loved the brand. I've just picked up a decent low actuation 7D and wanted to source some lenses.

What lens would you recommend that is tack sharp for photographing watches? Something with a great minimum focusing distance?

I'll be picking up a nifty fifty for sure, just because.

What's your budget? A macro lens is the obvious choice and there's a few options. There's the 60mm 2.8 USM, you can get one of these in excellent condition used for less than £200: https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equi...s/canon-ef-s-60mm-f-2-8-usm-macro/sku-842072/

Or if you need a bit more reach and better working distance there's the 100mm 2.8: https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equi...es/canon-ef-100mm-f-2-8-usm-macro/sku-844656/

Have seen the 100mm go for around £200 in classifieds on here. There is an L version with OIS but it's more like £500

If you're buying the 50mm either way the 100 would be my choice. Another option would be to get some macro rings for the 50mm if you only plan to do close ups occasionally.
 
I've never shot macro before. This might be a daft question, but can a macro lens be used for say, photographing a watch on a wrist rather than focusing on the seconds hand, for example?
 
The sample shots from the 60mm really do look great for the cash!
 
I've never shot macro before. This might be a daft question, but can a macro lens be used for say, photographing a watch on a wrist rather than focusing on the seconds hand, for example?

Yup, it can be used for portraits or landscape too if you like. They just tend to have slower auto-focusing than standard lenses and are rarely as fast aperture-wise. You won't really see an f/1.8 1:1 macro lens for example. The closer you do focus with them the slower they get so for extreme close ups it's often best to switch to manual focus anyway.

I think the 60mm looks very good, I've thought about it myself - I shoot Fuji atm but I do have a Canon AF adapter. I would buy the Canon over the Fuji 60mm because the Canon does 1:1 where the Fuji only does 1:2 and is also more expensive. The 60mm would be very useful for portraits also
 
I've never shot macro before. This might be a daft question, but can a macro lens be used for say, photographing a watch on a wrist rather than focusing on the seconds hand, for example?

A macro lens can focus at any distance so if you want you can take a photograph with a watch filling the frame or you can take a shot of the moon :D

Filling the frame is one option but another option could be using a non macro lens and cropping the picture post capture. If this is acceptable or not will depend on the size of the image or print you want. The big advantage of macro lenses is that you can fill more or indeed perhaps all of the frame with your subject but note that this may mean using smaller apertures as your depth of field may be very thin and this could mean either using higher ISO's or lighting or a tripod and longer exposures.
 
Back
Top